Butts In the Seats: When the entertainment tax in Spain skyrocketed, attendance at shows fell precipitously. To lure people back, one comedy theater company instituted a program where people would only pay if they laughed. According to an article on Springwise, the seats were outfitted with cameras and facial recognition software.
Every time you laughed, the account associated with your seat is charged 30 euro cents. So that people wouldn’t intentionally restrain themselves as the show progressed, the charge was capped at 80 laughs or 24 Euros.
9 comments:
This just seems like a really bizarre idea to me. It seems like charging people per laugh would have a pretty negative effect on the show. It seems like it would be distracting and alienating- I know if I knew I was being filmed and charged every time I laughed, I would at best be constantly worrying if a joke was worth laughing at, and at worst I'd actively restrain myself from laughing to save money. Charging per laugh seems like something you'd do to discourage people from having fun, which is the opposite of the goal of a comedy. Maybe this is working for this theatre, but to me it seems very counterintuitive (as well as prohibitively expensive- who has money for cameras with facial recognition software on the back of every seat?.
This is some really interesting technology. It is quite interesting to think about, i'm just not sure how applicable it is. Like Sarah said, I think this would be very distracting to deal with in a performance. If I were to laugh, I would then start thinking about how I was charged for that laugh specifically. Not to mention people would be far more conscious of their laughter, which could ruin the entire performance, for me at least.
I would be freaked out if there was a screen in front of me reflecting my image and counting the number of times that I laughed. I would rather just pay the fee and then sit there in peace to enjoy the show. It is becoming rather Big Brother-ish, having a machine monitor everything that you do. I would get really stressed out trying not to laugh or thinking about this camera. In fact, I might get so worried about the camera that I wouldn't laugh at all because I am so distracted by it. And the fact that it isn't just laughing, but smiling counts too?
I also think that this would be a very easy to bypass. You could just put tape over the camera so that it can't see anything. Or print out a picture of you not smiling and hold it up in front of you. I do like the idea about the museum visits though. I never have enough time to visit a whole museum in one trip, so it would be great if I didn't have to pay admission twice.
This is a really weird idea...and one I am not sure would improve the audience experience. It would be distracting to me, and would take my attention from the performance, resulting in a kind of detachment from the experience. I understand that some might be unsure whether or not it is worth the money to see something that they might not like, but that is the cost of the production and whether or not they enjoyed it, it was still an experience. I think that the suggested methods of developing the technology would possibly increase the distraction.
Personally, I don't like the idea of being recorded and paying money for laughs. But I've got to remember that I'm not an audience-goer in Spain watching shows whose theatre producers are dealing with a huge entertainment tax. The results of this weird and intrusive method seem to work enough to boost income by 28,000 euros. I guess this makes me realize the difference in viewing public all over the world, and how people around the world have different play-watching experiences. My mother used to tell me all about British theaters that would give you dinner with a show. I found it disgusting, especially because I hate the sound of people eating. Yet people still enjoy that type of theatre. I might not think that paying for laughs resembles anything that should be related to theatre--but if it works, it works.
It seems like a lot of people commenting on this article are weirded out by the idea of "paying for laughs." I actually think this is a brilliant idea that Spanish theaters are creatively adopting to avoid insane entertainment taxes. With that aside, I think this method of payment actually makes a ton of sense. As a theatre lover, I can usually always find SOMETHING I liked about any given show I see. I never regret spending money to see theatre, even if is not my favorite piece. However, I definitely cannot say the same for my non-theatre friends and family. If I take my family to see a show on Broadway or elsewhere in New York, and they do not enjoy it, they definitely regret spending the money. I think adopting a system where you "pay for what you get" is a brilliant and modern idea. This idea may or may not be favorable to the financial success of the theatre industry. On one hand, it may lead to a huge increase in audience members, since they will not feel as much financial pressure to enjoy the show. On the other hand, if the work is risky, it may result in a huge decrease in profits. Regardless, I think this idea is applaudable for Spanish theaters, and definitely worth keeping in mind for all theatre elsewhere.
Yes Jess, I agree. This idea seems wonderful. Even beyond plays, there are movies that I regret spending money for, $12 a ticket for three good jokes is ridiculous. But the one flaw is as noted, the fact that it only works with comedy shows. If the show is not meant to generate laughs (i.e. Of Mice and Men), then how does the system register emotional connection with the story?
I believe the answer is heart rate monitors. I agree with everyone else who has commented saying that the idea of being constantly filmed is creepy, especially when the image is being reflected right back at you. But regardless of whether you are holding in a laugh or bursting into tears, your heart rate fluctuates. It could be an less intrusive way than filming every single attendee. A program could be written to monitor certain patterns in heart rate fluctuations and relate them to programmed emotion matches.
I think that this concept is still in its infancy and the execution rather crude. I definitely agree that watching your laughs totaled up on a iPad on which you can see yourself is a little weird, but I think that the idea behind it is very interesting.
As we are moving toward a future where technology is increasingly integrated in every aspect of our daily lives, I can see this concept being applied in a much more graceful way. While I don’t know if it’s the right direction for the arts industries to move towards, making patrons pay for their actual exposure to and enjoyment of a play or a museum gallery is a neat idea. I can see how it might help rein in potential customers who are worried about not enjoying an unusual piece of theatre. As this article points, it’s hard to quantify appreciation of something that isn’t as straightforward as laughing at a comedy.
This system might not be viable at all, but the idea behind it introduces an interesting conversation about how arts organization can cater to their patrons, and how audiences interact with art.
It’s an interesting concept, to charge an audience by how much they enjoy a performance by their emotions, and not by blindly going into a performance and getting disappointed. It seems as though a company has utmost faith in their actors to deliver that kind quality of acting to bring out those emotions. Being the type of guy I am, I would probably have paid my tab pretty early on I enjoy going to see comedies. The only downside to the money making side, is what if it is a tough crowd. Audiences change every night, and just like some audiences are predominantly older and some younger, an audience feeds off of itself as much as they feed off of the performers. So there is a risk to this type of concept, although it seems to have worked in this atmosphere, I’m sure it can work again.
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