Ghost / Phone Free: Should All Shows Follow Suit?

Ghost has announced a massive tour for next year, one during which phone use in the audience will be banned. Should this be the norm? Other artists are not that keen.

A Phone-Free Experience

As MetalTalk has recently reported, Ghost will embark on a large scale world tour in 2025. Along with the announcement came another interesting piece of information. Namely, the tour poster mentioned that “this show will be a phone-free experience”. It explained that show attendees would always keep their phones with them, albeit secured in Yondr pouches. 

Now, this is by no means the first time Ghost has done something like this. The Tobias Forge-led masked collective did exactly the same thing for their Los Angeles Kia Forum shows last year.

At the time, they were filming the shows for their Rite Here Rite Now movie. Obviously, Forge & Co. were very happywith the experience and results, and the Ghost leader hailed the shows as the best ones he had ever played with the band. 

The fact is that mobile phones are not going away anytime soon. However, watching most of a show through someone’s smartphone screen can get very annoying. 

The announcement has sparked thousands of conversations all over social media. A lot of people were in favour of the policy, as it would allow concertgoers to actually be in the moment. As opposed to capturing something that doesn’t sound great when played back – if it ever IS played back.

There were also those who were against the idea on the grounds of their rights being affected in one way or another. Of course, as buying a ticket to see Ghost is a completely personal choice, with nobody forcing you to do it, it’s hard to say how that would happen.

By far, one of the funniest comments regarding this was the following:

“Their [sic] a satanic band. That sounds suspicious, especially everything that happened with diddy.”

One can only hope it was a joke. 

Jokes aside, Ghost are not the first band to ban phones at shows. Tool has done so for a few years, throwing fans out for using their phones to capture footage of the performance. They do sometimes allow for the last song to be filmed, so fans can leave with a souvenir.

Jack White is also known for a similar policy, using the same Yondr pouches that Ghost will have in place. However, there are also artists who don’t mind phone use at their shows.

Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares tweeted, and we quote:

“I don’t care if u bring phones into our show. The way I look at it is when u buy a ticket u do what the fuck u want as long as no one’s getting hurt + it’s not my venue so u have to follow whatever rules the venue gives if any.” 

Cazares has later mentioned that he was not taking a stand against Ghost doing so, despite some media headlines. 

How Does Yondr Work?

But how will Ghost make sure you’re not using your phone during the show? It’s pretty simple, really. When you get intothe show, your phone gets placed into a pouch, which gets locked once you enter the phone-free area. 

Should you need to use it during the show, you can just exit the area and tap the pouch on an unlocking base. It will be interesting to see what will happen with those using their phones together with a health monitoring device. 

Phones At Gigs: Yes or No? 

It’s hard to give a definitive answer to this question. 

A lot of people want to experience a show they paid for without the constant distraction of notifications. They also prefer their own memories to any footage they might capture, as high-resolution as it might be. 

On the other hand, some prefer to have digital memories that they can come back to later. We want to find out what MetalTalk readers think, so vote in the poll below or leave a comment.

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