Lion King 7:30 show Aug 2nd: WTF,,

so i just got out of The Lion King. The show itself was absolutely incredible, but I could hardly focus on it for a large number of reasons and it irked me so bad I decided I needed to come here to talk about what happened.

1. i understand there are always people trying to record the show. but mirvish NEEDS to find a better way to handle it. throughout the entire show every single scene would be disrupted on the sidelines by ushers repeatedly flickering their flashlights on people recording to get them to stop. this would go on for a very long time as well. regardless of where you were in the theater, this was disruptive to everyone in the space even if they were far away from the usher. along with that, the ushers were walking up and down the walkways CONSTANTLY and that also started getting very disruptive very fast as they also tended to move quite quickly for some reason. i understand that's their job but there has to be a less disruptive way to do it. i, and multiple people around me were constantly getting distracted by it.

2. WHY ARE WE TALKING. everyone all around me was talking so loudly ??? there were 2 young children likely no older than 5 sitting with their mom next to me, and the kids kept talking throughout the whole show as loud as possible, the mom shushed them once and then proceeded to talk to the kids the rest of the time at a very high volume. the kids fell asleep during the last 10 minutes, but i still could barely pay attention for the rest of the show.

3. what's with the phones? ushers are focusing on the people discreetly trying to film the show, but they're not at all concerned about the people in the theater texting and scrolling through socials with their phone on FULL BRIGHTNESS. there were multiple people around me doing this for a good portion of the show and nobody stopped them.

a couple other things happened, but these were the big 3. is theater etiquette just not a thing anymore? like i said, the show was so amazing but i just can't get over how much i felt like i missed due to all these disruptions. this was the show that started my acting journey and im genuinely so annoyed that i couldn't properly experience it. is this just how live theater is now?