MUMBAI: Indian is known for its diverse forms of art, culture and illustrious history. Be it popular or classical music, the country has produced some of the biggest legends in the world of music, who are admired across the globe.  But does India have an audience that attends concerts only to hear music?

Well, Indians find it cool to ape everything, West does, but why don’t we follow the basic protocols for live shows, which they strictly do? India, unfortunately, scores a ‘minus’ when it comes to the quality of its music audience, many don’t even qualify to being called one and can be termed as mere ‘crowd’.

So, we thought of sharing five basic guidelines that our Indian audience should take a note of before attending a music concert and be a good ‘viewer’.

Mobile menace

Mobile menace is a new age problem and the biggest one currently. We all have smartphones phones with cameras and want to capture the sheer magic created by musicians when we are actually watching their show live. But, aren’t we missing the magic, happening live in the urge of recording it. The worst scenario is going live on social media. Are we attending the show to regale in the quality music or for a mere show-off on our social media handles to make our friends burn? Another menace mobile creates is the obsession to take pictures with artistes.  Please let’s not be insensitive towards them. There is no harm if the artiste is relaxed and is willing to click a picture. In fact, they all love the adulation; but let sense prevail. Another bane of the mobile phones is keeping it on loud mode during live shows, despite repeated announcements. Nothing could be urgent enough for people to call you unless you are a doctor or in Army. In case of emergency, avoid attending shows. The phone ringtone disturbs the flow of the concert and could divert the artistes and rest of sincere audience’s attention.

Freebies

We all know someone who knows pulling off a trick or two for free passes for big ticket events. All the organizers invest immensely to advertise well in advance to make it easy for the audience to buys tickets. Then why ask for free passes from organizers or the performing artistes, even though it is convenient? Unless you are offered free passes, one should avoid.

Eating habits

Avoiding eating while someone is performing is a basic etiquette taught in school. Many artists have stopped their concerts, while some have walked out of an on-going concert on finding people interesting more in eating than their music. There is a time for everything, please be respectful!

Avoid chatting

When there is magic panning in front of you, why would you want to chat? It disturbs rest of the audience. Would you like when somebody else does it when you are busy enjoying something meaningful?

Avoid leaving in the middle of the concert

There are so many artists, who have told that they enjoy performing abroad more because the western audience has the basic sense to sit through an entire concert even though they haven’t liked it. In India, the situation is on the contrary. It is not only disrespectful but also discouraging for the artiste.