On Saturday night, Opera Australia used the power of comp tickets to harness the energy of some opera-mad tweeters (Mad Sceners, to be precise), endorsing a posse of nine or so to do what they usually do at the opera: tweet their impressions before and after, and during the interval.
It’s kind of unfortunate that it went under the tag #tweetseats, since no actual tweeting was taking place from their seats. I would have loved to see them sacrifice the rhyme and an extra character and opt for #foyertweets instead
Not because I’m a pedant or anything, but because, despite the Opera Australia event being accurately described in the media, the whole #tweetseats thing seems to have stirred unnecessary outrage in some quarters, with many assuming the tweeting was going on during the performance itself.
But for many of us, the last thing we want to do is tweet during [traditional] performances. The best summing up came from @primalamusica, who managed to condense the sentiment of my post from the other day into a mere 55 characters: “if it’s tweetworthy, it’s worthy of undivided attention”But I don’t want to get bogged down in matters of etiquette. It’s pretty obvious to any remotely considerate person that there are times and places for everything. What’s outrageous in a hushed and darkened auditorium might be absolutely fine on a picnic blanket at a concert under the stars. Use your good judgement.