Concert night: the 500 m room at an arena show

The lights go down, twenty thousand phones go up, and for the next two hours an arena full of strangers shares one evening. CicadaChat's 500 m room lets them share a conversation too: the name of the support act, which merch stand has no queue, where the cloakroom is, and the collective 😮 when the stage lifts off the floor. This article is about using the 500 m room at an arena show, from doors opening to the last train home, and about the small courtesies that make it work in a dark room full of music.

Why an arena needs the 500 m room

An indoor arena is usually 150 to 200 m across, with an entrance plaza, a car park and often a station just outside. CicadaChat's rooms are circles around you, and the 500 m room reaches everyone within 500 m. From anywhere inside, from the front of the floor to the top row of the upper tier, it covers the whole arena and everything around its doors.

The 100 m room would cover part of the arena, depending on where you're standing. From the back of the floor, it might miss the front. From the upper tier on one side, it might miss the other. That makes the 100 m room great for a small gig in a pub or a club, which the article small venues, big conversations: the 100 m room at a gig, a bar or a café covers. At an arena, move up a rung. The room list calls the 500 m room Same stadium or arena, and that's exactly where you are.

Before the show

Open CicadaChat, allow location, and tap the 500 m tab under the header. The header shows how many people are in range. At a sold-out show, that number climbs steadily from the moment the doors open.

The hour before the headliner is when the room is most useful:

• Doors and queues. "Door 4 is moving much faster than door 1." "They're checking bag sizes, small bags only."
• Cloakrooms. "Is there a cloakroom still taking coats? Floor tickets." "Yes, by door 4, two minutes ago."
• Merch. "Merch stand upstairs has a much shorter line than the one by the entrance." Tips like this collect 🔥 reactions fast, and deserve to.
• Food and drink. "The bar on the upper concourse takes cards and has no queue."
• Timings. "Support act on at 7:45, headliner at 9, according to the screens."

If you arrive late, scroll back. The answers to most of your questions are probably already in the room.

The support act

A good support act always leaves someone asking "who was that?". In the 500 m room, somebody knows. "Support act was brilliant, anyone catch their name?" "The Paper Lanterns! Their album is on every streaming app." A ❤️ on the answer, and the band has a few hundred new listeners.

A screenshot of the 500 m room at an arena show, in dark mode. Messages come from the floor and the upper tier, up to a few hundred metres apart.

During the show

Once the headliner is on, the room changes. People are watching, not typing, and that's how it should be. What the room does well during the show is small and quick:

• Reactions. "Lights are going down 🎉🎉" with a row of 🎉 under it is the chat version of the cheer that follows. Tap a message on your phone to show the quick reactions: 👍, ❤️, 😂, 😮, 😢, 🔥, 🎉 and 👀.
• The moment everyone saw. "Upper tier, block 210, this view is unreal 😮". A photo of the stage from the back of the arena, shared with everyone on the floor who can't see it.
• Setlist questions. "Did they just play the new one?" "Is this the last song, or is there an encore?"
• Practical things. "Someone's been taken ill near the mixing desk, security's on the way." "The lift to the upper tier is working again."

The help article sending messages, emoji and reactions in CicadaChat covers everything you can do with a message, including the full emoji picker.

Distances inside an arena

Next to every name, the room shows how far away that person was when they sent the message: right here under 50 m, and otherwise rounded to the nearest 50 m. Inside an arena, a few things about those distances are worth knowing.

Height doesn't count

Distances are measured across the map, not up and down. Someone in the top row of the upper tier, straight above your section of the floor, shows as right here, even though they're a long climb away. So "right here" in an arena means "in this part of the building", not "next to you".

Indoor locations wobble

Your phone works out where it is from satellites, Wi-Fi and mobile masts. Under a big roof, satellite signals are weak, and your position can be off by tens of metres, sometimes more. That's why the same person can show as 100 m away on one message and 150 m on the next, and why your own circle can drift a little while you stand still. In a 500 m room it rarely matters: the whole arena is well inside the circle, whichever way the wobble goes.

If the room looks wrong

If the 500 m room is strangely empty, or full of messages about somewhere else, your phone may still be using an old position from before you went inside. Turning on Wi-Fi, even without joining a network, usually helps a phone place itself indoors. Closing CicadaChat and opening it again makes it load the room around wherever your phone now thinks you are.

Being a good neighbour in a dark room

A phone screen in a dark arena is a small torch. A few habits keep yours from bothering the people around you:

• Use dark mode. In Settings, choose Dark, or System to follow your phone's own setting. A dark chat on a dimmed screen barely shows.
• Turn the brightness down. It also saves battery, which matters more than you think by the end of the night.
• Hold the phone low. Nobody behind you paid to watch your screen.
• Skip voice notes. CicadaChat can send voice notes, but in an arena they're mostly the band, played back at a quarter of the volume. Text and reactions work better.

Photos from the show

Tap the paperclip and choose Photo. CicadaChat resizes and re-encodes the photo on your phone before uploading it, which removes the GPS data cameras hide in the file. The only thing left to check is what's in the picture.

• Venue and artist rules. Some shows ask for no photos, or no flash. Respect it.
• Strangers. The stage and the lights are great. A close-up of the couple in front of you, shared with twenty thousand people, is not.
• Tickets. Never post one. Its barcode is all someone needs.

After the encore

The last song ends, the lights come up, and twenty thousand people head for the same doors. The room goes practical again:

• "Door 2 onto the plaza is clear, the main entrance is packed."
• "Trains are running every ten minutes, platform 3."
• "Taxi rank is round the back by the car park, much shorter queue."
• "Anyone heading into the city centre who wants to share a taxi?"

For the last one, keep the details for a private chat. Tap the person's name to talk one to one, and agree a meeting point that's busy and obvious.

Hot: the show as the crowd saw it

The flame button in the header opens Hot, the room's most-reacted messages from the past week. The morning after a show, it's a small record of the night: the best photo, the support act's name, the tip about the merch stand. Anyone who opens the 500 m room near the arena that week sees it, whether they were there or not.

A night at the arena, message by message

6:40 pm. You're in the queue outside. Tap 500 m. The header shows a few hundred people in range. Someone says door 4 is faster, and you move.

7:05 pm. Inside. "Is there a cloakroom still taking coats?" gets an answer in a minute: by door 4.

7:50 pm. The support act is great. Someone in the room knows their name; you react with ❤️ and add their album to your list.

8:15 pm. "Merch stand upstairs has a much shorter line." You go upstairs and are back before the lights go down.

9:00 pm. "Lights are going down 🎉🎉". You put your phone away.

10:45 pm. After the encore, "trains every ten minutes, platform 3" sends you the right way, and you're home before the crowd.

Arenas, stadiums and festivals

A stadium concert works the same way, just bigger: the 500 m room still covers the whole ground from any seat. An outdoor festival is different. The site can be larger than the room, and there are several stages at once. The article festivals and fairs: finding your people in a field of thousands has tips for that.

Meeting people from the crowd

Concerts are one of the easiest places to meet people who like what you like. If you've been chatting with someone in the room, tap their name to move to a private chat. If you'd like to keep in touch after the show, create a free account and add each other as friends. Friends see when you're online, never where you are. And if a group of you goes to every tour, a private room keeps you together between shows.