United Kingdom

weve noticed pubs have been sh*t to play in...?

Do you really think the smoking ban has had that great an effect?
If the only reason those folk go to the pub is to smoke, would they not just stay home?
I smoke. I dont smoke indoors. (boorishly poor manners IMO)
But then none of the places we play allow smoking anyway, so perhaps your right about your home environment.
Just does not make any sense to me.

Same thing here. The atmosphere sucks now, both literally & figuratively. The lights & lasers don't look NEARLY as cool. Ppl are wound up a lot tighter. Many many ppl just don't come at all.

We need ppl to open a buncha "sneakeasy" smoking joints like ppl did back in prohibition times, & maybe, just maybe, someone will start to pay attention to regular folk again. Unfortunately, these ppl wil be found & tried & fined & stuff, but they would be true patriots, in my mind.

I know that will sound a little strange & over the top to many, but it's time that ppl started fighting back when our gov'ts claim too much control. Who's biz is it, anyway, if I have an establishement that allows or even encourages smoking. Out here, you need to get a special permit if you want to let ppl smoke in your TOBACCONIST shop! How f*cking ridiculous is that?

Power to the ppl, dammit!

Humm, yes I could see how it would put a damper on a laser show.
I would still contend that if smokers had been as concerned for the rights of non smokers as their own. This whole business would have been less of an issue to start with. Sure I know there will always be those puritanical types. But probably a lot more like me. I smoke, dont care if you smoke. But I dont want some dickhead blowing his or her breath and smoke on my head thought the whole freakin show either. I dont even like being around my own wife when she smokes. She thinks she has to blow that shyt right in my face while she talks to me. Good thing I dont have the same mentality when I chew tobacco.

I've noticed that my gear has finally stopped smelling of stale smoke though which is quite pleasant.
Makes you wonder what it did to your insides.
I am just coming up on a year as a non smoker BTW.

I find that a hazer or smoke machine does fine to bring the light show back the way it looked when people smoked.

I think it's possibly the economic climate as well as the smoking ban that is causing audience numbers to drop.
That and Simon Cowell's constant stream of manufactured money making stooges gracing the TV screens every Saturday night.

Add to that this whole idea perpetrated by popular radio stations that seeing "Live music" equates to standing in a muddy field a couple of times a year to watch The Kings of Leon from 8 miles away rather than supporting your local struggling boozer by actually bothering to go there when bands are playing.

Who runs a laser show without a smoke machine? really?
I'm a smoker and dont mind not smoking inside, complaining about the light show suffering because of no smoking is probably the stupidest thing i've heard today. well done.

I hate smoke machines. They take my breath away, & I can't sing with them.

THIS IS PROGRESSIVE GOVT. Wonderful aint it. Next there will be controls on the amount of salt allowed on what you eat, what you eat ,when you can pee, how many times you can get layed,,,,, on and on and on. Welcome to the world of someone else telling you how to live your life. F THAT S!!!!!

The first thing I noticed was it was much clearer and better, you can see the band clearly instead of through a haze, the other thing is I can play now because my fingers are not reacting to the smoke.
Complaining that you need cancerous smoke for the lights is stupid, I could hardly play before because the smoke in cigarettes reacts very badly with Raynauds, my hands would swell up like sausages, so I can hardly bend my fingers.
Plus a lot of people are allergic to smoke, its not just unpleasant it makes people who are allergic very ill, and causing all sorts of chest infections and those people can't, not just won't, can't go inside a smoked out place.
So those ignorant people who think its fine to smoke somewhere out are stopping people being able to come in at all. And if people want to die of cancer just to get a haze effect, thats mental. Save the money you spend on buying packets of fags and buy a smoke machine. They say its their right to smoke, not in public its not, its people right not to be forced to breath smoke.

Would that be smoked sausages then?

Seriously, I don't drink - It makes me giddy and I fall down, I'm sick of drunks causing trouble glassing each other and being sick everywhere so how about we ban alcohol too - smoke free booze free pubs, now doesn't that sound like a much better environment?

I hate smoke machines. They take my breath away, & I can't sing with them.

That's actually more in your head than anything. If you realise that all it is, is vapourised oils, harmless oils in fact, you won't struggle to breath with them. The smoke is thinner, and less harmful than cigarette smoke, and shouldn't make you struggle to breath.

Here in the UK,
I think we are all guilty of finding reasoned arguments to say we should still be allowed to do the things we like doing, even if they harm us... and certainly even if they harm other people, which we care about even less than ourselves.
As a smoker you have no idea how unpleasant your smoke is to non smokers, because you only have a fraction of the ability to taste and smell that a non smoker has; so when you insist on your right to be allowed to push your second-hand smoke at non smokers all night, it is like you are making them do something which if it was you, you would be finding so unpleasant you couldn't enjoy your evening... like perhaps if the guy behind you kept nudging you sharply in the back all night!

That is is to me: you say, I want to breathe smoke all night, therefore i want you to breathe smoke all evening as well... like going for a beer with your friend and asking him what he wants to drink, but when he says Guinness, you say no I am drinking lager so you will drink lager tonight as well!
He would resent not being allowed to drink the drink he likes... and even more being forced to drink what he thinks is piss!
But that is in simple terms what you guys who smoke ask of everyone who doesn't smoke.
Mark.............

Equally and in the day and now....
There are trucks spewing matter in our faces in the streets. Of course that is not hand to mouth.

That is is to me: you say, I want to breathe smoke all night, therefore i want you to breathe smoke all evening as well... like going for a beer with your friend and asking him what he wants to drink, but when he says Guinness, you say no I am drinking lager so you will drink lager tonight as well!
He would resent not being allowed to drink the drink he likes... and even more being forced to drink what he thinks is piss!
But that is in simple terms what you guys who smoke ask of everyone who doesn't smoke.
Mark.............

I hate smoke machines. They take my breath away, & I can't sing with them.

That's actually more in your head than anything. If you realise that all it is, is vapourised oils, harmless oils in fact, you won't struggle to breath with them. The smoke is thinner, and less harmful than cigarette smoke, and shouldn't make you struggle to breath.

Actually, I beg to differ. There's a certain element that perhaps I'm just alergic to, but it does really bother me, & I avoid these things. Perhaps it's cuz the damed thing is almost always right next to me. I dunno, but they really do affect me.

THIS IS PROGRESSIVE GOVT. Wonderful aint it. Next there will be controls on the amount of salt allowed on what you eat, what you eat ,when you can pee, how many times you can get layed,,,,, on and on and on. Welcome to the world of someone else telling you how to live your life. F THAT S!!!!!

Unless you throw your salt, piss and semen over everyone while you perform said acts, that analogy falls flat on its face pretty quickly.

It's not about what you are doing to yourself, is it?