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Gig Attendance and Social Media Challenges

Any of us regularly working face this dilemma as live entertainment's biggest hurdle. The person that cannot put down their device. This affects all forms of entertainment.

The short video says it all:

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I'm going to be a fly in the ointment for a second (because that's what I do) and suggest that a dip in college sports attendance, especially football, might have something to do with it being over hyped in the first place, and people are becoming more aware of the fact the pipeline to brain injuries starts in college football.
People are also becoming aware of the fact that college sports are a horrible abuse of the students, and that the money from those sporting events are doing next to nothing to help the schools, just the programs.

It is easy to blame smartphones for something that was ripe for a decline anyway.
 
So true. I don't think it's for them to watch I think it's just a "look at what I'm doing now" social media thing.
When we go to show with my son we take one picture under the sign at the venue, I print it and put it in a photo album.
Old fashioned I know but I can almost guarantee that the digital version will not survive the test of time like the printed photo will and it's just a memory of that moment, the event stays in your memory so there's no need to make a documentary out of it on your smart phone.
I have photos from my childhood with my grandmother, they have lasted almost 60 years with no deterioration. Very few photos were taken at the time because it was difficult and expensive, so you put them in an album and kept them safe. Now we take thousands of photos, store them on hard drives, DVD's etc. none of these media will survive as long as the photo album and there is no way you're going to look back through thousands of photos, in this regard they lose all meaning.


Ever see the movie "Mystery Train"?

There's a young Japanese couple on an Elvis pilgrimage to Sun Studio.

The girl quizzes her boyfriend on why he's constantly taking photos of completely mundane things, like the floor of the train station, and not taking any photos of themselves, or the things they've traveled around the world to see.

He replies that he'll remember all of that important stuff - it's the mundane crap that he'll forget.
 
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I'm going to be a fly in the ointment for a second (because that's what I do) and suggest that a dip in college sports attendance, especially football, might have something to do with it being over hyped in the first place, and people are becoming more aware of the fact the pipeline to brain injuries starts in college football.
People are also becoming aware of the fact that college sports are a horrible abuse of the students, and that the money from those sporting events are doing next to nothing to help the schools, just the programs.

It is easy to blame smartphones for something that was ripe for a decline anyway.

You're off on the retaliation aspect, but I do think the spell has been broken on sports attendance - once someone realizes they don't have to follow it compulsively, they are just fine without it. Just like FB, twitter, talkbass…..
 
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Reactions: socialleper

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