"iPhone ringtone brings New York Philharmonic to a stop"

I bet Robert Fripp would love this guy...
 
http://news.yahoo.com/blo...ic-stop-200809090.html
 

I'm suprised Gilbert didn't use his wand to cast evanesco at it.

In that case, Avada Kedavra would've been justified..

What an idiot.  I'm like THE most passive non-violent easy going dude on the planet, but I'd kick that guy's ass all up and down the mezzanine!  Even my teenager is smart enough to turn her phone off going into an event.  Sheesh!

Fantastic.
 
What an idiot.

SeventhSon


What an idiot.  I'm like THE most passive non-violent easy going dude on the planet, but I'd kick that guy's ass all up and down the mezzanine!  Even my teenager is smart enough to turn her phone off going into an event.  Sheesh!

One thing is to forget to turn off his phone. I can forgive that. But if it then starts ringing any civilised person would dismiss that call as fast as humanly possible, and then mute/turn off their phone. This guy just sat there, hoping it would go away and that noone noticed, and apparently for quite some time. What a jackass.

Naigewron

SeventhSon


What an idiot.  I'm like THE most passive non-violent easy going dude on the planet, but I'd kick that guy's ass all up and down the mezzanine!  Even my teenager is smart enough to turn her phone off going into an event.  Sheesh!

One thing is to forget to turn off his phone. I can forgive that. But if it then starts ringing any civilised person would dismiss that call as fast as humanly possible, and then mute/turn off their phone. This guy just sat there, hoping it would go away and that noone noticed, and apparently for quite some time. What a jackass.

I agree.  The fact that this clown sat there and tried to pretend it wasn't his phone doubles his douche-ness.

i cant believe the conductor didnt ask for security to have him escorted out.  that would have been very easy for him to do.
 
or just stand there and tell the audience that the musics not starting until the guy leaves.

I think escorting him out would have been way too disruptive, because they were IN THE MIDDLE of performing a piece!  But still, yeah I agree with the sentiment.  
 
What a dumbass? how do you not know how to turn your phone off?  I would have stopped the performance, waited until it was silent, continued - then pulled the guy's tickets and blacklisted him from then on out!!   lol

Wow! Props to that conductor for calling him out hahaha

These people need to relax, my phone rang at a Testament concert once and no one even cared.

I'm glad this is a news story.  I'm the first guy to forgive someone's mistake, and I hope that people here see me as someone that sometimes even goes overboard in giving someone the benefit of the doubt.  But this is about basic human respect, and like someone else stated above, a colossal failure to take responsibility for your actions. 
 
And I think it goes without saying that I am a big fan of "the broken window theory".  

Well, as more facts come out, it seems that the offender was an 82-year-old man who had just bought his phone and didn't completely understand how it worked.  The phone did not "ring."  It was an alarm that the man did not realize that he had set that made the offending noise.
 
Doesn't change my opinion of the situation, but it might for others.

GhostofCain


These people need to relax, my phone rang at a Testament concert once and no one even cared.

I heard about this on the news a couple days ago. Accodring to that version of the story, the phone was actually turned off. However, the alarm was set to go off and the dude didn't know how to stop it for beeping/ringing or whatever it was doing. Supposedly the guy is a lifetime member of the symphony and it mortified that it happened. There are two sides to every story, I guess. That said, I don't blame the conductor at all.

3 Thoughts:
 
1. That guy seemed genuinely embarrassed - unfortunately muting the sounds using the switch on the side of an iPhone does nothing for the alarms setting.
 
2. What are the chance the "Marimba" ringtone on the iPhone goes the way of the old super annoying Nokia stock ringtone...remember that thing? I think we're almost there - I can't stand it.
 
3. I like that this is a big-ish story, people need to be educated on proper concert etiquette. I teach beginning band and I can't even tell you how many times my students parents have been texting DURING their children's concerts, or phones have gone off, or they have been generally disruptive. It's unbelievable.
 
 

I had a friend who was at this concert. Yes, it is super annoying to hear an iPhone in the middle of Mahler 9, but at the same time I think this news story will probably scare more people away from attending classical concerts. There are so many rules and points of etiquette that most "normal" people who don't have a big knowledge of classical music feel intimidated and might just stay away all together.
 
But yeah, turning your phone off isn't too hard. I do feel sorry for the old guy, though. He says he didn't sleep for a couple nights after the incident.

If "normal" people can't be considerate and observe simple etiquette, then I'm guessing they won't be missed.

Bails


If "normal" people can't be considerate and observe simple etiquette, then I'm guessing they won't be missed.

Their money, however, will be greatly missed.

Exactly. Orchestras all around the country are hurting financially. Big time.

So, fine.  Let the "normal," obnoxious, inconsiderate people in.
 
Then you'll lose the people that regularly go and have season passes, because they don't want to deal with that shit.
 
Based on this case, you'll lose the conductors, too.
 
Is it that hard to just be responsible for your own actions and considerate of others?

Bails


So, fine.  Let the "normal," obnoxious, inconsiderate people in.

Then you'll lose the people that regularly go and have season passes, because they don't want to deal with that shit.

Based on this case, you'll lose the conductors, too.

Is it that hard to just be responsible for your own actions and considerate of others?

I'm not saying they are right, but my local orchestra, Louisville, went bankrupt, so now we're without an orchestra because of no money.
 
Ipartially know from experience since I'm in my schools orchestra, and I always get annoyed when there are people whispering in the audience, especially last year when we played the finale for Shostokovich 5, which is ridiculously hard for a high school orchestra, and some moron was trying to whisper during the quiet section of the piece. I wanted to say some very harsh things to that man. 
 
I totally agree they should learn respect, but is national embarrassment the answer.

If it demonstrates how obnoxious, annoying, and distracting some people can be, and acts as a deterrent, I completely encourage national embarrassment.

With great smart phones comes great responsibility.

I also teach beginning band and I see this as well.  I always make a request at the beginning of the concert for people to turn their shit off.  Most of the time I never have an issue with the phones, but there are always things like crying babies, people coughing, etc.  You can't stop it all - not when you get hundreds of people in one place and demand silence.  It IS annoying as hell for the performers though.  

I am a big classical music guy (music major, have taken lessons with people in the nyphil, had friends at this concert blablabla).  The guy claims that he had just switched to an iphone, and put it on silent but didn't know that there was an alarm that would go off anyway, which just sucks, because if it's true he probably didn't even know it was his phone!  Noone pays to sit in the front row of a concert at the lincoln center just to ruin it!  And I think Alan Gilbert handled it perfectly by just saying sorry but this is too much and we can't continue until we stop.  Also it happened at like the worst possible time in all of music!  Mahler's 9th is one of the most gut wrenching pieces in the repertoire because for several minutes it fades slowly into nothing, and sure enough Mahler didn't even live to see it performed.  
 
So yeah imagine a ringtone at the very end of an 80 minute piece like that.  I thought I would share a really funny short clip where a guy overdubbed the ringtone to the very last moments of this piece.  
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUcYqdUBvQg

Great story. Very proud of the conductor that he stopped the concert and went to those measures.

Would be curious to see if the volume control is changed by some phone manufacturers. I know my phone, when I lower the volume goes to: vibrate only, silence except for alarm, then completely no sound/vibrate. That's what they should all have or something similar to that.

I feel bad for the guy, sure, but this is a concept that is not foreign to most attorneys (and why, in part, lawyers often get a bad rap).  There is almost ALWAYS an extenuating circumstance, if you dig hard enough or frame the facts the right way.  So lines have to be drawn.  Would it be better for that guy if he was a one-off patron only there for the liquor and hors d'ourves?  Sure.  But he wasn't.  Doesn't change the message to every one else, though:  when you go to see live entertainment, you are an invitee, and should act accordingly.  This isn't limited to classical concerts. This applies to movies, concerts, plays, speeches, etc. 
 
Sometimes the individual has to metaphorically take one for the team (society as a whole).  Not often, but occassionally.  And for me, this is one of those times.

I got burned by the alarm once. I was at a big convention with a bunch of professional executives (I am a reporter). I had set the alarm on my phone for this panel discussion and forgot about it. Well, it went off right as I entered the room- since it was the alarm rather than my normal ringtone, I thought it was somebody else's phone. So I can hear this thing going off as I find a seat, thinking "who is the jackass with the phone?" Then I sit down and notice people glaring at me. It had gone off maybe six or seven times.
It was pretty bad since I came in late and I disrupted the whole thing. To top it off when I yanked the phone out of my pocket, a bunch of coins come flying out with it all over the floor. I am apologizing and scraping quarters off the floor around people's feet. Felt like a total idiot.

play it cool
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news...tainment-arts-16688007

Jason Gillespie


play it cool
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news...tainment-arts-16688007

This is an amazing video!!! I applauded and laughed at my computer screen!!!