Hurry up and wait

I attend a lot of arts events: classical music concerts in New Haven, Hartford and New York; theatre and dance productions in New York; opera at the Met and the Met in HD here at Yale. I don’t go to movies much anymore because of the incivility of the experience, but now and then I see something on the big screen.

Going to all of these events has one thing in common: I always arrive on time. I do not arrive late, ever. Is that an exaggeration? Probably. There has likely been a concert or two that had already started before I arrived, but I honestly cannot remember such a thing. And certainly I have never arrived late for a Broadway show, or any theatre event.

And what’s my reward for always being on time? I wait for the latecomers! You all know this: NOTHING starts on time anymore. Broadway curtains are almost always held ten minutes; at the Met it’s five; concerts often start 15 minutes late, sometimes much later.

Why is that? Most of us are in our seats on time. We made the effort; we left a little wiggle room for traffic or trouble finding a parking space or mass transit delays. 90% of us are here. Why do the 10% get all the power? Why are WE kept waiting because THEY are late? Venues everywhere say something like “Latecomers will be seated at an appropriate break in the performance,” but they don’t mean it. Latecomers are seated for ten minutes while we who did the right thing wait for them.

FTS!

I’m reminded of this because my local public radio station just ended its four-week long Fall fund-raising drive. OK, it wasn't four weeks long – it just seemed like it.

I hate fund drives. We all do. The radio and TV stations hate doing them. But I hate them particularly because every three months an automatic charge hits my credit card for $91.25, money that goes to WSHU, my local NPR affiliate. I give them $365 a year and I am happy to do it. But I have to sit through hour upon hour of fund-raising just like those in their audience who are too damn stingy to pitch in.

There’s currently nothing that can be done. I hope that someday WSHU can broadcast two streams: one that’s free and one that unlocks with a code. Folks who have donated can listen to the drive-free stream while the rest of the audience suffers through the badgering.

But I’ll likely be dead before that happens.

Theatres though could make the change. Years ago the Equity theatre in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts did it. For an entire season they put an announcement in every program that the following year they would start their shows on time. “Be in your seat or wait outside” was the message, over and over. And the next year, they did it. Shows started on time; latecomers fumed – but they learned.

People can be trained.

Or, sadly, I should probably say it USED TO BE true that people could be trained. That experience in Richmond was about thirty years ago. There’s way too much evidence these days that bad behavior is on the rise and cannot be lessened.

Ah, the good old, on-time, days when 8 o’clock meant 8 o’clock.