Reading Mark Earl’s book Herd has really got me thinking. One of my favourite thoughts of his is about how we enlist people to interact directly to influence one another (for instance in an audience – where this peer-to-peer influence is so much stronger than anything we could transmit one-to-many from the stage).
It reminded me of something I saw years ago putting on a comedy festival when I was working at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. I held some events in the bar where there was a lot of background noise. One comedian (if my memory serves me right, it was Adam Bloom) dealt expertly with the noise by enlisting the collective power of the audience to influence one another (and it’s a trick I’ve used myself ever since). He just said into the mic:
“If you can hear me, say ‘shhh…’ “
The audience were given permission and encouraged to take charge of the matter, and see their personal stake in helping the solution. The handful of people who were paying attention were enough to influence the rest of the crowd. They all shut up.
Talking today to Kenneth Tharp at The Place – London’s contemporary dance space – he was complaining about the distraction of audience members using mobile phones to video a performance during the first night of The Place’s Resolution season, yesterday evening. He told me that appeals to the audience beforehand just didn’t seem to work and asked me how I’d deal with it.
Thinking of Mark Earls’ insights and my memory of Adam Bloom’s lesson at the ICA, I’ve come up with what I’ll call “The Audience Oath”. Feel free to click on the image below, download and use at any performance where you might need it.
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