July and August sees London busier than normal, bustling with holidaying families, tourists, and the usual array of business suits. It is also the time for The Proms: eight weeks of exciting, inspiring, unusual, but always first class music-making, which takes place at least once every day at the Royal Albert Hall (RAH).
The BBC Proms began as the "Henry Wood Promenade Concert Series" in 1895: a platform to develop new audiences and public taste in classical music. The diverse 2010 program includes a tribute to Sondheim and a Dr Who evening, well-known offerings from Mozart or Mahler, as well as evenings of contemporary commissioned works. Established orchestras including the LSO right down to various brilliant youth orchestras take part. Each concert is broadcast live on the BBC, and a combination of its cultural lineage, imaginative programming, and insightful development has led to The Proms becoming a British musical institution.
The Proms involves a unique audience behavior, where one can ‘become a prommenader,' an action I am interested in from a social psychological perspective. To Prom is to stand in one of the 500 spaces available in the arena or the gallery of the Albert Hall. Early on one could literally promenade (and drink, smoke, chat through the music), tickets were cheap, and part of the music was always accessible. A Victorian attempt at breaking the barriers between listener and orchestra. Nowadays, if you have the time, the patience, and £5 cash you too can prom.
Contemporary promming turns out to involve substantial amounts of queuing (standing in line): a social system that is influenced by clear social norms relating to procedural justice (first come first served), and cultural stereotypes (the British habit of queuing is renowned, though sadly appears to be dying out on London public transport).
Queuing has received plenty of social psychological research, partly because it is considered tedious, and wasted time. Standing in line is associated with frustration and queue rage, especially if queue jumpers are involved, and this along with motivators to renege your place in the queue is where most psychological research has focused.
Promming however, is not your typical social psychological queue experience. As new prommers we decided to arrive early, 4.00pm although the concert started at 7.00pm. We arrived, hung around, and looked slightly blank. People seemed to be scattered everywhere with no clear or visible queue, a British nightmare. Just as we were approaching a steward who was wielding a book of raffle tickets, a brusque lady marched in front and demanded,
"When are you going to give out the raffle tickets then?"
My friend seized this opportunity to ask the brusque lady, not the steward,
"What are the rules here, where do we go?"
A question which, as a seasoned prommer, she relished answering, pointing us to the end of the gaggle of people halfway down the road, and saying that we should take our place and wait until we could have our raffle ticket. It turns out that these were not for some mystery prize, but were to mark our places so that we could leave, locate a pub, and come back later, so preventing the classical music mob turning on unsuspecting queue jumpers.
It was the behavior, however, of the other prommenaders which spoke to me as a psychologist and a music listener. They knew the rules (which are not exactly the same as on the BBC or RAH websites) they were well prepared, and they had come in large groups of friends turning the queue into a social event.
The front of the queue were having a supper party in one of the alcoves of the RAH when we arrived, including freezer boxes of picnic food, deck chairs, wine, and proper plates and cutlery. The only thing missing was a dining table. Others were working on their laptops, or chatting to friends. They had all come with supplies, whether a three course meal, or an apple and a bottle of water.
Standing in line promoted social interaction between strangers. We all had a single purpose, in this case to see the CBSO and their rising star of a conductor, which promoted discussions about promming, music, tastes, and all sorts of random chatter. A sense of camaraderie and perhaps alcohol-induced bonhomie was forming as we started to move in to the hall two hours later.
Once inside a scramble to mark one's position at the front of the arena or on one of the coveted chairs ensued. I can't battle against anyone with grey hair, and so we gracefully took a place on the floor and hoped for the best. As the orchestra came on we were asked to stand to listen to the concert. Fine if you're 6ft and have not been standing for two hours already, but at 5ft 2 my face was pressed into some guy's shoulder blades and I was swaying with the heat. By tiptoeing and peering to the left I could just about see the brass section. Then the prommenaders, as a group, shouted some quip at the orchestra. I still don't know what they said, but it is apparently a social tradition to interact with the orchestra in this way.
The whole experience made me reconsider being a music listener and ideas associated concert-going practices. Different audiences develop unique identities and social/ cultural practices which continue to develop over time, yet these are rarely examined in music psychology or social psychology. Queueing, far from being a negative and frustrating experience associated with typical social psych research, was an integral part of the process, a unique social event in itself, and marked you out as becoming and being a prommenader. Yet there remained an air of secrecy, loyalty and some sense of 'them and us' between the casual prommers and the seasoned specialists. Next time I go, however, i'll remember the folding chair and some wine, and start to crack my way into the prommenading club.
