By now, the debate surrounding smartphones at music shows and whether or not they should be banned is picking up steam.

High-profile artists including Swedish rockers Ghost have already enacted phone bans at their shows to try and foster a more present atmosphere, with huge names like Sabrina Carpenter also mulling over the idea.

Now, Beyoncé producer Raphael has offered his opinion on the matter, citing his experience after mandating phones be locked away at some of his recent No Bandwidth: One Man, One Night, Three Decades Of Hits shows.

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“Taking the phones away just made it so I can give people the same opportunity that I had as a young [person] going to the Oakland Coliseum and watching The O’Jays,” he tells Tonya Mosley of NPR.

“I mean, I could see them walking up the stairs. I could see the lights on their shoes. I could see the lights on the amps. I paid attention to so much detail. Now, when you have phones in front of you, you see people stiff, and nobody’s moving in the crowd.

“It looks like it’s robots. It’s not really real people. So when there’s no phones… I just – I like it.

“The testimonies I heard, people said, well, they got a chance to hug, kiss, dance with each other…

In general, arguments in favour of phone bans tend to center around Saadiq’s point, that not having access to their phones makes a crowd feel more connected both to the artist on stage and to one another in the moment.

While we asked if it was really feasible considering the legions of teenagers in her fanbase, Sabrina Carpenter recently revealed she was considering the idea, after attending a phone-free Silk Sonic show and saying she’d “never had a better experience at a concert”.

“I genuinely felt like I was back in the ’70s,” she went on. “I genuinely felt like I was there. Everyone’s singing, dancing, looking at each other, and laughing. It really, really just felt so beautiful.”

She continues: “I’ve grown up in the age of people having iPhones at shows. It unfortunately feels super normal to me. I can’t blame people for wanting to have memories. But depending on how long I want to be touring, and what age I am, girl, take those phones away. You cannot zoom in on my face. Right now, my skin is soft and supple. It’s fine. Do not zoom in on me when I’m 80 years old up there.”

Asking fans to temporarily swear off their phones is, of course, a tall order in 2025, and artists will undoubtedly be concerned about dents in ticket sales as a result of such bans. But as it stands, the conversation is picking up momentum.

Indeed, a recent study by phone company Compare and Recycle estimated that fans seeing Oasis’s reunion tour will each watch 12 minutes of the show they attend through their phone while filming. The company says this amounts to 17.3 million minutes of the tour missed collectively.

The post “When you have phones in front of you, it looks like it’s robots”: Producer Raphael Saadiq on the benefits of phone-free shows appeared first on MusicTech.