What’s wrong with this picture?

Last week I went to a show and like many other shows I have attended they were very strict about banning photographs during the show.
Now, I understand completely that the flash from cameras can distract the performer. Many museums and art galleries, for example, allow photography but no flash.
But I am talking about a complete ban on any kind of photography.

To my mind this seems like a hangover from old fashioned thinking, which goes something like this : Don’t show the people what we do. Let them come and find out for themselves.

But this goes against what we have seen so frequently from time immemorial, and accentuated more recently since the arrival of social media, that giving people a taste gets them more attracted to the main event.

Many magicians do ban recording because they don’t want the trick to be given away. There is probably some merit in it. But as a lay man even if I see a video of someone making an elephant disappear I still want to go and see for myself.

In fact I think that video of the vanishing elephant is likely to be circulated more widely than a line in his/her press release and get far greater interest in the act.

Similarly I believe seeing pictures of a show, either on someone’s social media feed, or on an email has the potential to get spread far and wide and bring more people in to the show.

Perhaps while performer has a Facebook page and has accepted that customers lead the conversation they are still, like many big brands, trying to control the messaging rather than let consumers own it, spread it and bring more people in to the tent and rack up those dollars.