By J1 Reporter Lilly Prenger

Thousands of micro-flashlights wave in your peripheral vision as you frantically zoom and adjust your exposure in order to get the perfect shot of the artist onstage.

The seven-foot-tall man in front of you makes this a difficult task as he shifts from angle to angle, making sure his girlfriend’s Instagram post will be top-tier. You’ll return home with hours of footage forever sealed in the time capsule of iCloud storage.

Since the beginning of the smartphone era, the concert experience has been significantly altered.

Phoebe Bridgers, a popular indie rock artist, is challenging this phone-swarmed concert narrative across the world as a part of the tour for her new album, “Lost Weekend.” Bridgers is one of many artists, including stars like Bob Dylan and Bruno Mars, to implement phone bans at her concerts, choosing to emphasize the importance of the event experience over the footage in your camera roll.

Lena Muska, a sophomore at Millard North High School and an attendee at one of the “Lost Tour” performances last month in Chicago, said that when the phone ban was announced, she felt “kind of excited because with the past experiences I’ve had at concerts, it feels like it’s a fight to see who can get the best videos, and it’s hard to see a lot of the times when everyone has their phones up.” Muska enjoyed the time away from her phone since it “really felt like everyone was there for fun and just to be there and listen to her music.”

At the Saint Paul performance, sophomore Kara Kelsey felt “honestly a little nervous because I’d never been to a concert without an adult before and neither had my friend. I was worried I would need to contact an adult,” Kelsey said.

The process of locking phones while entering the concert is thorough yet efficient – attendees go through metal detectors and traditional security, then power off their phones and place all devices, including digital cameras, watches, and even Meta glasses into small locked containers called Yondr pouches. Guests then carry the pouches around their necks for the rest of the night. At the end of the concert, there were stations and staff with metal magnets that would unlock the pouches.  “The process took a pretty long time… This made it super congested to leave the venue,” Kelsey said.

Muska explained how there were “areas where you could access [phones], but they were far from the actual music… So if you really needed it during the concert, then you could go out and they would unlock it for you.”

When the phone ban was originally announced, there were concerns online about attendees with medical issues that required access to their phones to continuously monitor health conditions.

In addition, fans accused Bridgers’ new policy of being ‘classist’, stating that a lack of concert footage on the internet would make the performance inaccessible to those who couldn’t afford a ticket.

In an article by Lindsay Zoladz for the New York Times, she pointed out that “neither argument proved persuasive. People have been enduring the indignity of not being able to afford a concert ticket since long before smartphones existed, and venues are required to allow concertgoers to access phones for medical reasons.”

As far as the actual experience at an analog concert, Kelsey said: “I actually really liked the no phones concert… I felt really connected to everyone around me.” She explained that instead of waving traditional phone flashlights, people held up lighters instead, which she thought was “pretty cool and retro.”

Muska agreed: “I wish every concert I went to had no phones… It was just magical and everyone was in the moment.”

Although fans’ Instagram profiles might be sparser than usual post-concert, the phone bans at the Phoebe Bridgers “Lost Weekend” tour are reviving the idea of analog experiences and challenging what it means to be fully in the moment.