Behaviour at concerts/theatre/cinema

[Paddington68]

Last night I went with a friend to Wembley at see STEPS, yes they were brilliant, thank for asking. My friend kept glancing back to two women behind us and I became more and more aware that they were chatting. No about the concert or STEPS but about I said this he said that, blah blah. STEPS were on the stage at the time. The woman next to me was also bothered by them and rolled her eyes to her husband/boyfriend.
After them talking through three songs, I turned and said,
"I've paid to see them (pointing to the stage) not listen to you, so can you pipe down." The woman I spoke to said "sorry." like a tantrum four year old and looked at me like dirt.
AIBU to think that people no longer know how to behave and need to be told.

I hate people taking at concerts/gigs. If they're in front of you and especially at a standing gig all you can see is their heads moving together and apart and snippets of conversation. I don't know why they bother buying tickets.

We had the worst cinema trip last week. Kids club - for some reason a good 10+ kids thought it would be more fun to run, sing, dance, wrestle etc at the front. Not watching the film at all. Staff repeatedly came in, told them to sit down, soon as they left they were back up. Parents on phones/chatting. Made it so hard to concentrate on the film. Why bloody go & ruin it for everyone who is teaching their child to sit and behave. People just don't care anymore. Very sad.

here's a tip for anyone driven mad by noise in venues. AVOID the tennis at O2. I didn't go this year though I love going because every year I was driven mad by people constantly up and down out of their seats, talking during play , texting, eating smelly pizza and nachos and generally behaving as though they were at home. I once even had to ask some guy in front of me to be quiet because he was talking through the play during the last game of the match. actually, now I think about it, I didn't ask him, I told him.

ShirleyPhallus - we weren't far back
The people in question were talking through the loud bits and the quieter bits.

WorraLiberty - I am sorry if you thought I was impolite. I thought I was very restrained.

We saw steps on their last tour like 5 yrs ago....there were people sat behind us boo-ing...I couldn't understand why the hell anyone would pay almost £50 a ticket to go and boo a band.... do people really have money to throw away like that???

yanbu

Cinemas are probably the worst. I’ve noticed that as people get into their seats now they seem to take selfies. What the fuck for? Is anyone on Instagram going to be interested in you and your husband sat in some bog standard Cineworld with the captions #datenight #couplegoals.

People at gigs seem way more interested about showing off the experience rather than enjoying it. My Facebook feed is full of blurry videos of middle of the road indie bands filmed on iPhones. I guarantee nobody is the slightest bit interested.

The most annoying one was when I went to see a film screening at the Albert Hall. It was a big event with a full orchestra, and generally an amazing experience. Apart from the people behind us who tucked into giant rustly bags of Haribo and chatted loudly in Swedish. I think the guy behind us was translating for a friend. When I asked them to be quiet they shut up for about five minutes. £50 a ticket to hear a load of rustling and chatter.

Worra:

"YANBU to want her to stop chatting.

YABU to be so rude in the way you told her."

Agreed. You can have said: 'I'm very sorry, but you keep talking through all the songs and I can't hear a thing. Can you keep it down a bit please"?

A while back, I had to sit next to a man at the cinema who kept farting and then apologising loudly. It was grim.

YANBU OP and I don't think you were rude either.

I live in the back-end of nowhere and we rarely get any proper acts coming locally (Elaine Page, Showaddywaddy anyone?) so when the Kaiser Chiefs did a warm-up gig in my nearest town a couple of years ago, we were excited to get tickets. It was a standing and sitting gig and we were in the stand-up bit, towards the back as both being a bit short, could see over people's heads pretty well from that angle. As the band started, two pretty tall women stood directly in front of us and proceeded to chat through a good few songs quite loudly. I got to the end of my tether - and I've no idea to this day why I did it as it really could have gone wrong and I normally wouldn't say boo to a goose, but I put my hands on the arms of one of them, and sort of moved her across whilst saying, if you want to chat, go somewhere else and don't stand in front of people who actually want to see and listen to the band. She was more gobsmacked than anything else and my DH pretended he wasn't with me.

I don't get the getting up and down to go to the bar thing either - we saw the Manics at Swansea football stadium last year and there were a two couples in front of us who seemed to be on tag-mission to go and get fresh beers etc. almost constantly. Why pay £££ to see someone if you're going to spend most of the event somewhere else or slowly getting pissed?

YANBU in objecting to the conversation behind you and saying something.

No matter how appalling an act is they deserve some courtesy, assuming they are not rude themselves.

Though I'm sorry to read that you like going to watch something which I cannot call music. Bad karaoke if they sing live, bad mime if they don't.

DD and I went to see Disney on Ice a few weeks ago. Fist of all the woman I was sitting beside smelt really bad but worse than that there was a family of 6 in front of us and another family of 6 in front of them and every single one of the 8 kids got up to go to the toilet in the first half. Each child had to be accompanied by an adult so each adult got up 3 times each and then one of the dads got up to answer a phone call too. This was within the space of an hour.
We went and sat somewhere else for the second half.

My daughter was performing in a show last night. Some of the seats are actually on the side of the stage right beside the piano she was playing and singing from. Some children very close to her were talking all through act 2 I'm not sure how old they were but we're not told to be quiet. It is really off putting for the cast.

My first time at Twickenham was marred by a group of very drunk blokes (at the rugby? Shocker!) who turned up 20 minutes into the first half, each carrying two pints, drank them then left nearly ten minutes before half time to return to the bar. They repeated that for the second half.
Why buy expensive tickets to a live match then spend 75% of the time buying and drinking overpriced beer?

I learned my lesson. I studied the ground layout and found a couple of sections where there were groups of two seats on their own little row next to the aisle. Now we book those and don't get interrupted! They also tend to be quite near the pitch so we get a good view of any close action.

There are people I cannot visit the cinema with because I know from bitter experience that the way they watch films is to make humours quips in my ear like a running commentary all the way through the film.

It gives me The Fucking Rage.

YANBU. I was at the theatre recently and two women behind me seemed to find it necessary to give a running commentary of what was happening on the stage to each other, took a few times of me turning and glaring at them before they finally shut up. Its so rude and ignorant to the performers and the audience members who actually want to hear the show without some stupid twat yapping their inane drivel all through it.

Yanbu it drives me mad.

Some examples.

Royal Albert Hall Christmas Carol Concert on Christmas Eve. Woman with 2 children. Aged between 8-10. Plenty old enough to sit still be quiet and not need to be entertained or told to be quiet. Mum had a ruck sack full of junk food at her feet and her kids all the way through were food food food food. They never stop asking for it or stuffing their fat mouths with crisps and biscuits. It was so distracting. Why didnt they just go to a mcdonalds or a cinema if they wanted to sit and eat all through it and ignore most of the concert. When they were eating they were whispering to each other.

The last two films Ive been to the people next to me have talked all the way through.

I dont get why people are so rude.

*when they weren't eating they were whispering to each other.

YANBU bought my mum tickets to Dolly Parton & the women in front gassed the whole way through the first half about the times they'd seen her before. DM tapped one on the shoulder during the interval & said you might of seen her before but others haven't so can you shut up! Good for you for saying something, I inwardly cringed because I would of just sat there fuming if it was left up to me

I took DD and her mate to a concert (outdoors , no seats) and of course there was the pushing, the "excuse me just need to get to my friends ) . We were standing hours ( I'm talking 8 hours before the main act here)

But there was a woman who was practically on my daughter, right up against her. I asked her to step back , literally a half step, so she wasn't body pressing her.

Woman behind me stuck her fucking beak in "if she's that bothered she shouldn't be at a concert , its busy at a concert " (I'm surprised she didn't spell it out C-O-N-C-E-R-T just so i 'got it'.

The pushy woman had pushed in but couldn't get any further , hence body pressing DD.
If it had been a man doing it , I'd have got right in there physically.
To Nosy Cow getting her beak in , I said "Yes I realise its busy but she can step back one step , not be right on her"

I wanted to say "Fuck Right Off CuntyChops and don;t fucking patronise me unless you like to eat through a straw....." but I resisted

Yes we had this at Ed Sheeran! Before he came on the people behind said they “don’t like his slow ones” so talked (more accruately, argued!) right down my ear the whole way through them, arghh

We were standing hours ( I'm talking 8 hours before the main act here)

8 hours?! How did you not piss yourself?

OP, sorry to hijack your thread, but can you tell me what the tour was like - did they sing a lot of their new stuff or mostly old?

I'm going later this week and not to be impolite to their recent efforts but... I think we all know what people want to hear!

P.S. in reply to your original post, yes that does sound rude however in my experience it's usually too loud to speak at a concert let alone be louder than the music? Was it particularly quiet or something ?

moutonfou

I went this weekend. It was AMAZING!

They open with scared of the dark, they also do about 4 more songs from their current album throughout the night - you make me whole, neon blue, happy, and no more tears on the dance floor. Otherwise it is all their old stuff.

At one point the girls do a version of some 90s power ballad (can’t remember which one) while the boys have a rest. Then later the girls go off and the boys to despacito which then goes in to summer of love.

It’s fab. Such a brilliant evening!

It’s really shocked me on recent trips to the theatre how badly behaved some people are. People talking through the play/show. One woman at a v expensive panto my parents took us too answered a phone call while it was going on, and was merrily chatting and everyone was too polite to tell her off (I was too far away but could still hear every word ) finally the ushers reached her and she acted like they were the unreasonable ones for asking her to stop talking

I was at the theatre today and the man next to me was on Facebook!