O2 Priority members to access portable phone chargers in an effort to combat gig goers’ charge anxiety

The days of panicking about how much battery you have left before the end of the night look to be a distant memory. At least, if you are attending a show at an O2 Academy across Britain and also happen to be an O2 Priority member. It comes as research by Virgin Media O2 looked at the problem of “charge anxiety” ahead of their plans to accommodate phones relying on flight mode to retain battery.

The study asked 2,000 regular gig goers what their worst fears are of going to a show and found 57 percent fear their phone running out of battery at a show, leaving them unable to find someone they’ve lost in the crowd. 17 percent wanted to call friends, who aren’t there, so they can experience the music and 16 percent use their phones to pay for merch or drinks.

The survey also found that 23 percent admitted they struggle to enjoy the concert if they’re fretting about their phone’s battery and 16 percent wouldn’t go to a concert if they couldn’t take photos or videos, which increased to 45 percent for 18–24-year-olds. 29 percent feel they would miss an opportunity to capture memories if they couldn’t record at a gig as gig goers would spend an average of 14 minutes of each concert they attend capturing content on their phone.

“It’s clear that music fans want to be able to capture the moment when they’re at a music event without fear of their phone running flat” Jayd Williams, head of music partnerships and sponsorship, O2 Academy, at Virgin Media O2, said. “Since the rise of social media, sharing photos and videos of events has become the norm, with gig-goers wanting to show off their experience and what artists they’ve seen.

“Whether it’s for the likes of the personal memories - so they can re-watch and relive the moment - it seems that we now live in an age of “did you even go if you didn’t take a photo?”

How do I avoid charge anxiety?

Electronics company LG surveyed 2000 people before this recent research on battery life and found that about 9 out of 10 people have low battery anxiety and face severe anxiety when witnessing their battery drop to 20% or lower.

The company then offered suggestions on how to combat this 21st-century problem by taking the following steps with a mobile phone.

• Turning your mobile phone on to Flight Mode to avoid reception, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth function wiping your battery life from your phone.
• Toggle off any apps that over consume your battery through the “background app refresh” option in settings.
• Close apps that aren’t being used on your phone, especially anything that requires location features or GPS
• The vibrating function uses more battery life than a ringtone, but a silent phone will retain a lot more battery life in the event of pre-red bar battery signs.
• Using the Auto-brightness setting to adjust the brightness that’s optimally fitting for the time of day especially as bright screens on phones consume a lot of battery life.