'Tweet seats', a new trend in US theatres

All you Twitter addicts who love to give a live commentary while watching a performance, theatres have some news - good or bad, it's for you to decide - for you. More and more theatres in US are adding 'tweet seats' to the halls for the people who want to tweet while a show is on.

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All you Twitter addicts who love to give a live commentary while watching a performance, theatres have some news - good or bad, it's for you to decide - for you.

More and more theatres in US are adding 'tweet seats' to the halls for the people who want to tweet while a show is on. 'Tweet seats' are the seats set aside for Twitter users who want tweet during the performances.

Rick Dildine, the executive director for Shakespeare Festival St Louis — an outdoor theater festival that began using tweet seats two years ago — told USA Today that tweet seats have 'become a national trend.'

'Coast to coast, theaters are experimenting with how to use 'tweet seats' effectively,' he was quoted as saying.

'The arts are evolving right now, they are participatory... Social media is a tool we rely on, and we have been unafraid to experiment with it.'

While many theatre operators are adopting the idea of 'tweet seats', few don't have any plans of implementing this as they expect the viewers to keep their phone switched off during the performances.

'We make a pre-performance announcement asking patrons to turn off their... cellphones in order to keep the light and sound from distracting other patrons,' Patricia O'Kelly, a Kennedy Center spokeswoman, told USA Today.

Though there are no reports of this trend catching up in India yet, it will be interesting to see how the audience will react if theatres implement this idea here.