WWW.BENDSOURCE.COM / JUNE 23, 2022 / BEND’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
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Stuck Outside with a Mobile (with the Millennial Blues Again)
For many, Bob Dylan’s music evokes an element of folk nostalgia. At his show in Bend, the throwback vibes extend to the no-phones policy, too By Nicole Vulcan
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major concert in the modern age contains all the bells and whistles: booming sound, an incredible light display, nostalgic fans… and a sea of blueish screens, all positioned on the artist to amateurly document the whole scene and blast it out on social media. But one folk legend is among a growing number of artists to hold back the tide and announce a “phone free” experience at his shows. When Bob Dylan plays at the Hayden Homes Amphitheater on June 27, he’ll be the first artist at that venue to require a phone-free environment. Instead of standing on tiptoe to rise above the blue-phone sea, attendees will see those phones tucked away in cases designed to help people hearken back to the old days, when one had to find a phone booth (and maybe wait in line) to call the babysitter. Once, before the word “selfie” was a thing, this was just the way it was. Millennials and Gen Zers, your friends of older generations assure you that you’ll get through this.
How it works
The entry process at Hayden Homes Amphitheater already comes with a few hoops: Scan your ticket (yes, from your mobile phone), have your (clear-plastic-only) bag searched, get wanded with a metal detector.
For this show, there’s the additional step of grabbing a storage pouch from Yondr, the company contracted by Dylan’s team to deliver phone storage. Having a sea of phones at a live show “bleeds the energy out of a room,” Yondr’s founder Graham Dugoni told CNN Business in 2020. At a show or other event serviced by Yondr, attendees pop a phone in the pouch and close it, which locks the pouch until it’s waved over an unlocking device at the exit. Attendees who need to take care of phone business during the show will have a designated area
said Beau Eastes, marketing director of the Old Mill District and Hayden Homes Amphitheater. Still, the process is fairly basic, and doesn’t involve some complicated form of coat-check. “When you leave the venue, you go and unlock it and you’ll give that pouch back,” Eastes told the Source. “Your phone stays on—you have your phone in your possession the entire time.” But while it’s new for Bend, it’s been a growing trend over the past decade—especially for big-name artists in the comedy and music scenes.
“This is something that will be new to us, but The Lumineers have done this. A lot of comedy acts—Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock have done this before. Donald Glover performing as Childish Gambino has done it at his shows.” —BEAU EASTES to unlock it and do their thing before heading back to the show. This being the first time the amphitheater has had this type of policy in place at the request of an artist, its team is still working out the details of where the phone area will be located and how big the area will be,
“This is something that will be new to us, but The Lumineers have done this. A lot of comedy acts—Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock have done this before. Donald Glover performing as Childish Gambino has done it at his shows,” Eastes said. Weddings are another place where a phone-free experience is a trend in 2022. It
