Topic: Resistance to filming with a camcorder

[ace5gt]

I bought a camcorder and I'm trying to get into filming shows.  I've tried to approach this by first tying to get legitimate permission from bands (or management) on social media and contacting venues to see if I can get permission.  Needless to say, it's not going well.  I'm like 0 for 25 on this.  Essentially every artist ignores my request, and every venue defaults to "no" without any consideration if the band may be taper-friendly.   It seems all these years later, the taboo of video cameras is alive and well in the concert industry.

So I'm pretty much at the point now where throwing caution to wind, sneaking in the gear, and attempting to stealth the show is my only option.  Although I'm not sure how stealthy one can actually be with a camcorder.  It seem to a large degree, I'd be hoping for venue staff to be cool enough to just look the other way and not bother me about it.

Any ideas?

[breakonthru]

Get a zs100 and act like it’s nbd and that it’s just a personal camera like the 400 phones people are holding up

[mrfender]

Agree.  Most venues allow small cameras with a non-detachable lens. 

[guitard]

Get a zs100

For reference, here's a clip I recently shot with a ZS100.

https://youtu.be/ebMiZO8xiiw

[tjj5036]

What model are you trying to bring in? Unfortunately even with half the crowd filming the entire set with an iPhone you'll get shut down with a camcorder 99.9% of the time due to long standing stigma against them. I'd get a point and shoot like the Panasonic Lumix ZS100 or one of the Sony ones and use that instead. You'll get great video quality and you won't have to worry about sneaking it in. That being said, I have noticed among the youths that bringing in vintage (MiniDV/Hi8) camcorders is in style and venue security typically allows those in. If you want to go old school you probably wouldn't have an issue.

[guitard]

I have noticed among the youths that bringing in vintage (MiniDV/Hi8) camcorders is in style and venue security typically allows those in. If you want to go old school you probably wouldn't have an issue.

Young people bringing in vintage camcorders is in style?  And security doesn't care? Wait ... whaaaaaaaaaaaaat??

I'm shocked that the average security person has any clue whatsoever about which camcorders are vintage and which are new; and they allow those with old videocams in and don't allow those with new videocams to enter.  How does that even happen?  I mean ... you got two people standing there and security says, "OK - this videocam looks old enough.  You're good.  Go on it."  And to the next guy, "Nope.  This one is a few years newer.  Sorry - you gotta take it back to your car."

It just sounds like a major headache for security to have to decide whose videocams pass the "old enough" test and turn away those that don't.

Not to mention ... if you film on tape, now you have to capture (in real-time) and encode that video.  That's a ton of work compared to shooting a video with a phone - that you can literally share to social media seconds after shooting it.

It all sounds crazy to me ... but then ... so does the resurgence of official releases in 2024 coming out on cassette tape!

[beatkilla]

Sheesh if you can bring in some older cams mine as well go back to my Sony VX2100

The king of low light …. Even in standard definition smokes all these little 4k cams.