Life through a lens Shake it like a #nofilter picture: why banning photos at gigs is pointless

A new patent granted at Apple could allow bands and venues to implement a ‘no photos’ policy, but fans should be able to experience gigs however they want.

Words: Jamie Milton
29th June 2016

For years, music fans have been encouraged to put their phones down, quit the screen and focus on what’s happening on-stage. In the near future, some of us might not have a choice.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple has been granted a patent that could, in theory, prevent gig-goers from taking photos of their phone. It’s not quite dystopian stuff or Kafka-esque, but phones could be stopped dead from enabling a camera function. Infrared signals could disable live photography and video recording, meaning unless you bring an old school point-and-shoot (or y’know, a non-Apple phone), your blurry #prophotographer life is finished.

Whether any of this actually happens is anyone’s guess, but bands have been waiting in the wings to stop dead fans’ life-through-a-lens instinct. Not all of them, obviously. A couple of years back, wave of bands tried to halt the rise of the snap-happy generation. Savages claimed that camera phones “prevents all of us from totally immersing ourselves” in a performance. Live music being a shared experience, their argument was that this experience is damaged when a band is giving everything on stage, while onlookers are glued to a handheld device. Yeah Yeah Yeahs went for the same move, putting the more blunt “PUT THAT SHIT AWAY” on doors for their shows.

This was back in 2014, and the times seem to have changed. Radiohead - a band many would presume to be pin-ups for an anti-megapixel brigade - actually encouraged their fans to film recent shows on their ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ tour. They’re down with the kids, you see. It’s not just Instagram they’re into - they’re massive on Periscope, too. An advert on their W.A.S.T.E. site gave wi-fi codes for Secret Solstice, enabling fans to livestream their performance at the Iceland festival. The circumstances are slightly different, mind you. Radiohead have a massively active community of fans on different sides of the globe, all scrambling to see footage - any footage, no matter what the quality - of their favourite band in action. After a four-year stint without shows, you can understand the demand. When the band returned to London back in May, this wasn’t an occasion that should have been reserved to the lucky 2,000 who managed to get tickets.

"There’s a danger of elitism, exclusivity for those who can afford tickets"

This is what faults the ‘no photos’ perspective: there’s a danger of elitism, exclusivity for those who can afford tickets. We’re in an age where touts get first dibs, leaving thousands heartbroken when they can’t see their heroes live. Surely they should be able to enjoy this experience in some way, even if it’s from a distance. And for those buying a ticket, under what condition should they be forced to put their phones down? They’ve already forked out the cash - often a considerable amount - to be here. It might seem dumb to take a grainy shot when there are higher quality videos online (and HD, television-filmed videos when it comes to festivals like Glastonbury), but there’s nothing quite like a first-hand experience. And when flicking back through old, seemingly useless photos of a show, these rubbish shots still offer a reminder of exactly where you stood, at what point, during which song. Sure, the experience might be hindered at the time, life best experienced there and then. But fans should be able to immerse themselves in shows through whichever means they choose, whether that’s a front row epiphany, a can’t-be-arsed pint stood at the back or a series of photos nobody in their right mind would choose to frame in the living room. Unless there’s a very good reason to prevent photos - like stopping bootleg videos being filmed when bands play new material, but even then that’s fairly contentious - then an outright ban spells trouble.

Tags: Radiohead, Savages, Features