I was up in SLC on family business during General Conference weekend and my TBM nephew and his wife were visiting and they decided to go the the Conference. I think they went on one of the Saturday evening sessions. The one thing that stood out for him was that there were huge sections in the back of the enormous conference hall that were empty. He seemed very surprised to find out that the sections in the back were all empty and the attendees were all asked to fill in the front sections for the cameras.

He also said that the church staff was creating a line out front to help give the illusion that there was a crowd of people trying to get in the building, much like a nightclub trying to show off how popular they are.

When I looked at the conference footage and thought of my nephew’s experience I could see that the cameras did not show the back of the room at all. Interesting....



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2017 01:12PM by praydude.

That's not good!!! In both the bible and the book of mormon, all the conference sessions were always SRO!

There were a whole bunch of empty seats at the beginning the first session camera pan.

They try to say that they are for people in the stand-by lines but I call BS. It wouldn't be hard to fill the empty seats before the session actually begins if there were actually people waiting for them.

If I ruled the world I'd make sure all the lower seats were filled first and tell the camera operators not to pan the empty seats, duh. Talk about a church that thinks it knows how to do good PR.

When Monson goes it will be interesting to see if the dare risk not filling the Conference Center and just have it in the Tabernacle. But then hey, Benson couldn't even fill the Tabernacle.

hahaha. Maybe they need to hire seat fillers like at the Oscars.

They need to take a lesson from Trump and pay thousands of people to show up!

They certainly have the money to do so!

At the Trump rallys, the camera men are told not to pan the audience because the liberal left media doesn't want TV viewers to see that twenty or thirty thousand people showed up to see Trump. At General conference, the camera men are told by church leaders not to pan the audience because they don't want the TV viewers to see all of the empty seats. In both cases, the goal of the media managers is to deceive the TV viewers.

In 1978, a few friends and I drove to General Conference from the west coast. No one had tickets that we saw. The line outside of Temple Square started forming at about 6:00 AM for the first Sunday session. I can't remember if the tabernacle filled up or not. But we were almost first in line, so we got good seats. A hobo on the streets could get in then if they wanted to. Having been to several rock concerts together, we laughed about how waiting in line for General Conference was a lot like waiting in line for a smoke-filled rock concert.

Unfortunately, that'll never happen. There will always be ones who feel pressure on them to go. Members trying to impress another member by attending, even if their hear isn't in it.
Maybe they'll stop showing it on devices, where members can watch at home. They will have to start going to the chapel to see it, like in the old days, then members can see and talk about who attended and who didn't.
The ones who live near the conference will end up having to go in person

Wow!

In 1974, a bunch of us college kids headed up from Louisiana to go to General Conference. We didn't have tickets or anything (we didn't know we needed them, coming from the south like that).

We tried to get into the Wednesday session over at the Tabernacle, but it was full to the gills -- until somebody gave the usher two tickets while my friend was standing there just about begging to be let in. There were three of us, but he said "What the heck -- you girls drove 1500 miles to get in, so I'll let all three of you in on the two tickets."

So we got in, and I attended the only "in person" general conference session I have ever attended.


So now, you say college kids that did that nowadays would have no trouble getting in? My, how the world has changed!

And to know that back in the 80's, people couldn't get inside the tabernacle, so they had to sit out on the lawns and listen to it being broadcast over the outdoor speakers.

I remember back when the Conference Center was a new thing--it was a big deal to even be able to get in to see GC live. You had to have tickets etc.

Now I guess it's just easier to watch/listen on your computer, tablet, phone or whatever--or just not endure to the end at all.

The conference center is so big, I got the idea that the church could draw inspiration from pro-sports. I thought (not seriously) they should bring in the announcer from the Utah Jazz to introduce the lineup for the day at GC. "Starting at Profit, Seether and Regurgitator, a 5 foot whatever phenom from the University of Utah even Gordon B. Hinkley---Amen!" They could have laser lights, fireworks etc. They could tap their canes as the announced speaker came down the line--kind of like the basketball players give high-fives.

snowball Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The conference center is so big, I got the idea
> that the church could draw inspiration from
> pro-sports. I thought (not seriously) they should
> bring in the announcer from the Utah Jazz to
> introduce the lineup for the day at GC. "Starting
> at Profit, Seether and Regurgitator, a 5 foot
> whatever phenom from the University of Utah even
> Gordon B. Hinkley---Amen!" They could have laser
> lights, fireworks etc. They could tap their canes
> as the announced speaker came down the line--kind
> of like the basketball players give high-fives.


Hire a pro wrestling ring announcer.

Every apostle gets an entrance theme with an intro video shown on a gigantic screen above the stage.

Lots of pyro.

Let's get ready to GRUMBLE!

I never thought of that. A couple of years ago at one of our hockey games, we decided to finally go up the escalator to the upper deck seats, since we've never checked it out and wanted to see the vendors up there. When we got up though, ushers were there , giving " upgrades" to sit lower down. ( better seats).
We gave him our tickets, wondering what better seats we'd get, since we were behind the glass. He gave them back and smiled at us and said " not better than this". They had that section blocked, so we couldn't explore.
We thought it was to save money, by not keeping vendors open for a few people or having ushers walking up and down stairs for a few people
Never thought it was so more people would be on TV, making attendance look more than it was.

It's so bad that they can't even get members of their Spirit World to show up.

And if an article looked boring, you could skip along to the next one.

This was in my TBM days, too.

They'll just show video from the last conference. Who would notice anyways, besides a few bloggers and "disgruntled ex-mormons"?

What would be fun is if they just showed a re-run of last year’s conference just to see if anyone notices.

Or one with, say, David McKay?

Apple released a new iPhone and not even the fanboys gave a shit. Set up for crowds; tumbleweed and crickets..

They built the conference center at a time when they could fill the seats. If people stop showing up they can cover that up for only so long. So they will find creative ways to downsize their space as they move to smaller venues, with lots of excuses and lies. But they will never admit the one true church is dying when they're supposed to be the greatest show on earth.

Creativity to bolster denial is a powerful thing. I'm sure they will come up with plenty of reasons not to show the back of the room on tv.

Ha I always thought there were long lines to get in!

Pretty soon Utah Mormons will be assigned seats to fill. My Mormon family in Utah will praise the inspired conference enhanced experience program. Tearful testimonies will be borne.

I agree with this, one day the mighty morg will have conference assignments just like cleaning toilets. The only difference would be, , , oh, maybe there isn't a difference come to think about it.

It's just like the way the cult fudges on its numbers of members. (You can be sure that all or our names here at RFM, and all of our dead relatives are on that list, "for 110 years." Come on! The cult isn't going to keep track of when every ex-mormon dies.

Sunbeep is right. There will be "callings" for certain wards to attend conference en masse. I think they take turns "participating" in the July 24th Parade on rotations. I remember when it was our ward's turn. The expense was all paid for by ward members, out of their pockets. Several weeks of hard labor went into the float and costumes, and there was unrelenting pressure for every member to be there--especially the children.

LDS, Inc. got teen-agers to attend their New Year's Eve televised fireside, so that would appear popular and wonderful. No one wanted to go! No one. Parents didn't want to drive their kids there, when they could stay home or go to their own parties. Wards suggested providing busses, because people didn't want to drive downtown on the craziest traffic night of the year, but the authorities said no to the busses. They wanted the parents to bring the kids, and thus fill up more seats and more cars in the parking lot.

THERE ARE WAYS the cult can force its members to do anything they want them to do! Those seats will be full, one way or another!

(Someone suggested bringing in the homeless, and dressing them up in DI donated suits and dresses)

I remember the Michael Jackson trial, when his publicists offered people a free lunch and bus ride to the trial. At an Osmond performance in the BYU stadium, we were certain that the screaming "fans" gathered at the foot of the stage were planted. You can fool some of the people some of the time....