If you’re having fun please notify your face!
This is something that has bugged me for years. People who go to concerts, plays, movies or talent shows and sit in the audience with no expression. They don’t clap, tap their foot, sing along or smile at the entertainer. They just sit there like a lump as if to say “entertain me."
I’m not an entertainer, but I have done my share of speaking engagements and emcee work, and I can tell you there is nothing worse than standing alone, on a stage, and looking out at a sea of blank faces.
Thankfully, there are always a few kind souls who will give you something back—a smile or a nod—and it makes all the difference.
I never understand why you wouldn’t want to get the most out of a show. You paid for it. You will get a lot more bang for the buck if you participate and give back some energy along with your appreciation.
Recently, an actual movie audience for The Greatest Showman with Hugh Jackman erupted in spontaneous applause. How refreshing!
Every performer will tell you they feed off the energy and it bumps their talent to a whole new level, too.
The best live shows I have ever been to have been the ones where you can feel the energy of the crowd before the show even starts. There’s a current running through the audience. You feel the adrenalin. When the star comes out and the place explodes---then you can sit back because its going to be a great show.
Here’s another thing: its only an hour or so—pee before you leave home so you don’t need to make everyone in the row get up and move out for your kidney issues. Sit down!
I often think how the person on stage feels looking out into a sea of frowny faces—those people with no emotion who never clap along nor applaud at the end. Heaven help them if they are forced to give a standing ovation. Some are like the human version of Grumpy Cat!
They are usually the same ones who leave before the show is over so they can beat the traffic out of the parking lot to hurry home to their sad little lives where they will sit in their sad little easy chair and drink a cup of sadness and be sad some more. Very sad!
Every memory etched in my mind is because it was an experience because I made it that way. I have screamed during Elvis Presley, sang along to every song with Barry Manilow, stood throughout a full Lionel Richie show, wept through those John Denver ballads and raised a Red Solo cup to Toby Keith. (all respectfully—its also not cool to bother others)
My friends and I will always be the last ones leaving a venue waiting to congratulate the performer or making new friends with other fans and then going to some second location to discuss, over coffee, every song we just enjoyed.
I wouldn’t have it any other way than to wake up the following day with a sore throat, frozen smile and laughing headache.
Turn that frown upside down, people!
Its good for the soul and bonus—if you are last to leave???? You’ve missed the traffic jams!
