I agree iThings cause a great deal of stress in this area. There is one local festival that actually escorts parents from the event if they pull out a device. Although that policy solves a miriad of issues and prevents disruption, I can't see it flying in my own
auditorium, with the parents of my own students. All I can do is state the policy, and politely redirect obvious infractions. I let administration deal with it beyond that.
That they're parents is one part of the issue. A larger issue I've seen is ushers and
house management not being comfortable trying to pull someone from the audience during a show. They're rather displeased at the prospect of A) alienating that particular audience member and B) disrupting the nearby audience members during the process of either removing or discouraging that audience member. Concerts aren't as bad as they're tend to be breaks between songs, but theatrical performances are the worst because they're tend to not be good moments for an
usher to assert their authority without causing a greater disrupting than the person filming/recording or with their camera/phone out.
I know a growing number of dance studios and high school theater departments that curb this by offering sales of recorded performances. They figure that the best way to discourage parents and family from taking photos and filming videos during shows is to offer a professionally recorded version. Then if someone says, "But that -- that right there is
my kid on
stage. You're saying I can't record them at all?!?!" the
usher can respond with, "We offer a professionally recorded version that we assure you is of much better quality than your phone will capture, and doesn't disturb fellow audience members in the process."
That requires some forethought on the front end of securing the rights to produce the recording. I believe most groups skate by and wait for someone to slap them on the wrist. Others are more particular and reserve that for productions of shows by Shakespeare that are so unequivocally in public domain.
My personal favorite for school events is the 1/2-price dress, which applies more to theater than music. The night before opening, you offer admission to family members of the cast, crew, and pit at 1/2-price, and offer them the ability to take their own photos of their kids on
stage. It's understood that if you as a parent want to photograph your kid on
stage, you either do it this night or not at all. Generally there tends to be a professional photographer present as well, either hired or invited from the local newspaper.
The most candid opinion I can offer relative to music is, how many parents actually want to listen to their kids' musical performance several months or years after the concert? A video, maybe, for family movie night, but not an audio recording. The quality of a live recording most schools are capable of doesn't attribute itself to being listened to time and time again.
As a music program, if you really want to preserve the performances in time, once a school year or once every couple years
book a day or two in a recording studio. Make sure every work performed is a work you can get the rights to, and then produce a CD that's of a quality people will be willing/wanting to listen to time and time again. Something that sounds like it wasn't recorded in a cavern or someone's garage. To that end, in a recording studio you can do a few takes and choose the best, and mic the performers more specifically -- in a live symphony or choir performance, more than a couple microphones tends to freak directors (and performers) out, besides being visually hostile.
Back when my brother was in high school, the jazz band went this route and record a CD. It was enough of a special project that they got a graduate of the music program their who had gone into musical composition to compose the title
track, "Chimps on the Loose". It doesn't sound like a professional symphony spent a few weeks in a recording studio recording it, but it's of great enough quality that my ears don't bleed when I want to listen to it. I don't believe they've recorded again in the last 11 years since they recorded that CD, but the tracks they recorded for it have been appropriately memorialized within the department and to the families of the musicians. The
track they had composed specifically them gets the most applause every year or so when they
play it at their concerts as a matter of tradition.