Audience Participation

I despise it. When I go anywhere to be entertained, the last thing I want is an expectation that I must help produce the entertainment. Sometimes the audience is asked to participate, while at other events they willfully volunteer. A good example of the audience volunteering their participation is music concerts.

A few years ago, Terri and I finished off a North Carolina vacation with a Keith Urban concert held in Myrtle Beach. The venue was simply the worst ever designed for music shows - The House of Blues. I have several beefs with HOB. First, only the first 10 or so patrons can sit and watch the show. The next 20 or so can see the show, but not sit. The next several hundred can wander a bar-like setting and hear a muffled version of the live show. I would never pay to darken a HOB door, even for a Beatles reunion show.

The HOB setting worsens with audience participation. I found a comfortable corner of the bar to listen to Keith Urban, but found myself surrounded by dozens of teenage girls belting out the lyrics to every song. I heard them just fine, but had difficulty hearing the act I paid to hear. Keith did not elicit the participation. No, portions of the youthful audience volunteered to participate. I have seen other acts turn their microphone to the crowd, an obvious and overt request for them to sing along. Those are usually only for short stints in a song - maybe just the chorus. The audience's voluntary participation will usually span the entire event.

Anyone who has plopped down hard earn dollars to see Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede show knows how audience participation can become irritating and aggravating. Their version is nothing short of obnoxious. When you arrive at a Dixie Stampede show, you are treated to an opening act in the mezzanine. Enjoy it, because it only gets worse from there. Once seated in the main auditorium, the emcee arbitrarily divides the audience into 2 or 3 teams. In order for your team to "win" something, they must scream louder and longer that other teams. It is their clever way to artificially generate excitement where none would otherwise exist.

Can you imagine getting excited over your team's pig racing against another? Or even better, cheering your cowboy riding an ostrich over the other team's? From the first moments, I felt an extreme hokeyness overcome me. I did not want to participate. Getting my team's food served before an other's did nothing to motivate me to cheer for my team's cowboy, pig or ostrich. I might have participated if the winning team had their price of admission refunded.

There was one show I experienced over 32 years ago, that I enjoyed the audience participation aspect. It was called "King Henry's Feast". The setting was King Henry's court where wenches did the serving while the lords were served. I was a lord. Terri was a wench and had to go beg for salt for her lord. I liked that.