The Show Is Starting, Please Turn On Your Cellphones - Ben Sisario via NYTimes.com

The Tateuchi Center outside of Seattle is reversing the pre-digital policy of forbidding attendees to use devices during performances:

Ben Sisario via NYTimes.com

One new hall near Seattle is turning that logic on its head by encouraging patrons to send texts and update their Twitter and Facebook accounts to their heart’s content. The Tateuchi Center in Bellevue, Wash., is expected to open in 2014 with a policy of smartphone laissez-faire, as a bet that allowing technological engagement will draw younger audiences.

[…]

To improve cell signals within, it will have a 12- to 14-foot antenna. That should also help provide another source of revenue: renting out space for corporate events during the day.

The theater will have a standing policy of allowing nondisruptive cell use during performances, he said, and will perhaps distribute small screens to patrons to place on their phones and dim the light. Artists booked there can request no phone use, and in time an etiquette might develop.

“I don’t think this is something that changes overnight,” Mr. Haynes said. “We didn’t want to build the last great concert hall of the 20th century, but maybe the first one of the 21st century.”

Makes sense: since you can’t control devices, support their use, and suggest sensible etiquette. Besides, as a new venue, a deluge of tweets and Instagram photos might drive ticket sales.