Frequency blog: Music news and reviews from Bend and Central Oregon, by Ben Salmon | The Bulletin

At the end of my Norah Jones review in last week’s GO! Magazine, I addressed an issue not directly related to the performance, but certainly tangentially related to attending a concert at Les Schwab Amphitheater, which was more crowded than usual that night thanks to a large section of reserved seats and three VIP tents. Here’s that aside:

… this was a crowd ripe for some epic showdowns between people who wanted to sit and people who wanted to stand. And that happened; I was near one particularly nasty confrontation. The Schwab should put up signs at shows like this that say something like “People are allowed to stand and dance wherever they’d like.”

I understand the sitters’ frustration, but that’s just how it is. Period.

And if you’re the type of person who’ll sit in your chair and yell “move!” and “sit down!” at a group of people standing and obscuring your view of the stage, do everyone a favor and stop doing that.

Since that published, I’ve received a handful of emails from folks talking me to task for, essentially, encouraging people to stand and dance and block the view of other people who paid to enter the venue as well and deserve to be able to see from their seats. And now, I’d like to expand on this topic in another column, reviewing opinions on both sides and looking into not only the policies at a few local venues, but also how they feel about it.

So if you have something to say, I hope you’ll leave a comment, ideally with your real name and your home town, since I may be including it in the column.

Do you think people who’ve paid to enter a venue to see a concert have the right to stand and dance wherever they like? Or would you side with the folks who believe their seat should come with an unobstructed view of the show? And does your opinion change based on whether the show is in a venue with seats as opposed to general admission on a lawn? Let me know!