using a fan at the theater, was I being unreasonable?

[carlajean]

We were at the theater tonight and a woman two rows in front had a fan that she was using most of the way through the second half. It was a tense drama, but having a white fan constantly flicking backwards and forwards really put me off. Was I unreasonable to approach her afterwards and tell her (calmly) how annoying it was? She looked at me as though I was mad, and now I feel an idiot AND irritated.

[Crowler]

I thought we were referring to the cinema, my bad, where I normally bring my ski gear. Freezing.

It does get hot in a lot of the old theatres. If you're really far from the actors and it's really hot....? Some of the balcony seats get fantastically hot.

[NotNewButNameChanged]

Wowfudge - I manage a theatre. I know what I am talking about. Most front of house stewards would regard a patron fanning themselves as acceptable behaviour. If an audience member complained to front of house (unlikely - in my 10 years' experience I've never heard of it in my venue) a steward might possibly ask them to cease but if the patron chose not to, that patron would not be removed from the theatre, which would or should be the case with someone who uses their phone, talks through a performance or pisses themselves against the wall. Fanning simply isn't regarded as a disruption in the same way.

Recently someone complained about an issue in the orchestra pit. The patron found it distracting that they could see a violinist's sheet music and they found the whiteness of it distracting. What are we supposed to do, tell the musician they can't PLAY?

[LessMissAbs]

YANBU - because you didn't bellow out in the middle of the performance, ruining everyone else's enjoyment.

YANBU also because you say she used the fan for most of the performance. The mobile phone light in the previous thread was for a few seconds a few times.

Mind you, I would still probably have ignored it. I just don't find small lights that off putting in a cinema, although if the noise of the fan was audible and constant then that would have annoyed me.

What sort of fans comes with lights?

[wowfudge]

NotNewButNameChanged - my opinion doesn't mean I think don't know what you are talking about. I just don't agree with you that staff should do nothing if a paying punter is having their experience spoiled by the lack of consideration of another audience member.

[NotNewButNameChanged]

Wow - OK. I'm genuinely interested what you think should be done in these circumstances:

Person A is fanning themselves throughout Act I.
Person B complains to front of house at the interval.
Front of house asks Person A if they would mind not fanning.
Person A says they find it too warm and no they won't.

Should front of house refuse to let Person A remain in the theatre for Act II and kick them out?

[kelda]

YABU. I've had someone faint in the seats in front of me due to the heat - that was far more distressing, not to mention distracting. I wish they had used a fan.

[BIWI]

No matter how tense the drama, if you go to the theatre where there are hundreds of other people, something will be distracting. People cough, or shuffle, or read their programmes during the play.

What on earth did you expect? Everyone to keep stock still for the hour or so?

YABVU.

How about a bit of empathy for the woman who was so hot that she had to resort to using a fan? Presumably the heat was also spoiling her enjoyment of the 'tense drama'?

[wowfudge]

NotNew - apologies; I should be fully concentrating on one thing, instead of trying to do several at once! I saw your post in which you stated that very few front of house staff would speak to a patron fanning themselves. I see you have said in a later post that if someone complained then FoH staff might possibly speak to that person and ask them to cease. If someone asked me to stop as I was distracting other people, I would, even if it made me uncomfortable, as a courtesy to others.

If the person were selfish enough not to stop fanning themselves in a manner distracting to others, what recourse would the other audience member(s) have if they felt the performance was ruined for them?

[LessMissAbs]

I'm beginning to get the feeling theres more than a few people who go to the cinema/theatre/whatever to look at other people in the audience, rather than the performance...

[SilverApples]

'No matter how tense the drama, if you go to the theatre where there are hundreds of other people, something will be distracting. People cough, or shuffle, or read their programmes during the play.'

That was one of the hardest things to teach my Aspie, that you couldn't scold parents for their annoying children, and that as it wasn't illegal to unwrap and eat sweets in the theatre he couldn't object to that either.
He's the one who embarrassed me by saying 'For God's sake woman, can't you control your children?' when he was 6 and at the cinema. Loudly, standing up and glaring. Yes she was allowing them to misbehave, but I wasn't expecting him to do that. (Channeling his grandfather)
Last time we went to the theatre with Dsis and her children, he was so irritated by her that he moved seats.
If you are sharing a space with a number of other people, much of what they do will probably on your nerves. It's part of the experience, sadly.

[MelanieRavenswood]

I am shocked by the posters on here saying that menopausal women and disabled children shouldn't go to the theatre for fear of annoying others. Wtf? So you are such a precious flower that you can't cope with movement from someone else (who can't help it) when you are watching something? Maybe you are the one who should stay home.

[SirChenjin]

I think - as someone upthread said - there are other ways of cooling yourself down which don't involve waving a fan around. Generally when you go to the cinema/theatre/opera/anything which costs an arm and a leg the rule of thumb is that you should be as unobstrusive and cause as little disruption as possible to those around you - unless you have no alternative. Patently there are alternatives to wafting a fan around.

[NotNewButNameChanged]

Wow - it's about balance and the level of the distraction though, isn't it? As fanning is generally not uncommon behaviour and has been in theatres for probably 200 years, for most people and for most theatres, it simply isn't a distraction in the way that someone using their mobile phone is. I'm not denying that for some people, it can be a distraction, but it's managing reasonable expectations. If this were 1894 when almost all theatres were still lit by gas, almost everyone would be fanning because of the heat generated.

I mean, you could be 5ft tall and the chap in front of you be 6ft 3 and as a result you can't see a lot of the performance. The show is sold out and there is nowhere else to move you. Do you expect the theatre to remove the person who is too tall because they have ruined your experience? Should the theatre ask people their height when they make a booking? Should you be entitled to your money back? Of course not.

I'm afraid It's a public building and it is always possible than one person out of 200 may be distracted by someone doing something - that just has to be accepted. If behaviour in unreasonable, then staff will do something, but, as a rule of thumb, a fan in a hot theatre is not generally regarded as unreasonable by most if not all theatre managements and most, I suspect, regular audience members.

Of course if the production is really good, it should take more than a bit of fanning two rows away to distract you from the drama!

[Caitlin17]

Crowler during Edinburgh Festival events in August which get very crowded and hot I always take a fan. I have seen venues offering them.

Not a battery fan though, that wouldn't be acceptable.

[Caitlin17]

Crowler during Edinburgh Festival events in August which get very crowded and hot I always take a fan. I have seen venues offering them.

Not a battery fan though, that wouldn't be acceptable.

[BakeOLiteGirl]

I've worked FOH in a theatre for years. Getting the temperature right is something that is worked on all through the performance. At the venue I worked, we did regular temperature checks. But, due to the nature of air conditioning in the old venue, it was usual for people just two rows in front to be baking hot, while someone sat two rows behind would be wrapping themselves up in coats.

What is more distracting than a fan, is having to move an unconscious person or fainter from the middle of the row. I've done it regularly. It's hard to do without causing a massive disturbance to those around. In that instance, a fan would be less intrusive.

Also to the comment about people with disabilities stimming, there are laws in place to protect these people's right to see theatre.

[SirChenjin]

This is an interesting thread. Someone recently posted about her friend who checked the time once on her mobile phone during a cinema performance and was given a bit of a bollocking by another cinema goer after the film. The general consensus from MN was that it was distracting, extremely rude and unfair on those who had paid a lot of money to see the cinema.

I would find the constant movement of a fan far more distracting during a quiet theatre performance far more distracting that one quick flick of a mobile phone light during a performance containing light, movement and noise.

[NotNewButNameChanged]

Sir - how often do you go to the theatre, out of interest?

[SirChenjin]

Not as often as you.

[NotNewButNameChanged]

Ha ha, probably not! I live here. My suspicion is that people who go often or regularly would probably think absolutely nothing of fanning but those who rarely go might well find it annoying. There'd be exceptions but think as a general rule of thumb that's probably the case.

I find people who have never been to the theatre before find it incomprehensible when a theatre doesn't allow them to take drinks into the auditorium because they are used to it in a cinema.

[Sallystyle]

I bet this was my mother in law

[ComposHat]

Fans at the theatre? Where did you go to theatre? The Regency Period? Did she peer coquettishly over the top?

[SirChenjin]

I don't think it matters how often you go to the cinema/theatre/opera/any other public area you've paid money to - it's perfectly possible to have opinions on what you find annoying or unacceptable from other people regardless.

[gleegeek]

YABU. If the lady felt the need to fan herself, she was obviously feeling the heat. Theatres can be absolutely boiling hot and she had a solution with her to help - unless it was absolutely vast then it was probably less distracting than someone waving their programme around to cool down.

Am so sad at some of the comments about disabled children and menopausal women being too distracting to allow into the theatre and

NotNewButNameChanged great posts! When did we become so precious?

[MrsCakesPremonition]

This is the only possible reason for spending a small fortune on a programme, so that you can flap it like a fan without attracting attention.