Fed up with people making noise at classical shows

That's funny - I've heard audiophiles go on forever about how their system is so resolving they can hear a cough in the audience or someone drop something in the studio. The cough becomes more important than the music. Or the squeak of Art Blakey's hihat or the creaking of the clasical guitar player's chair. Nobody's ever satisfied.

In keeping with the OP's point, more and more people think class is something that they skipped in school. Be it a night at the orchestra, watching a movie, or even attending a funeral or cemetery, class and dignity seem to have taken a back seat to more selfish ways of expression. Common courtesy used to be the bar set for comporting oneself but now its so low that even a knuckle dragger can miss it.

The cough or sneeze can be annoying. Is it that difficult to control a body function for 60-75 minutes before intermission! Of the close to 100 concerts me and my wife have attended I can't recall either of us having an issue. Are only issue was the lackluster conducting(Neeme Jarvi) and performance of the DSO!

Let's talk about something that really matters: Neeme Jarvi, lackluster?!?!. What music was he conducting? Jarvi is one of the greatest living conductors.

I must agree with Frogman. I have heard Maestro Jarvi conduct a lot of concerts, and have never heard a lackluster performance with him at the podium. The man lives music, and has a special ability to get the orchestra to bring out the most of the emotion in a work.

I am sympathetic to the OP's complaint in some respects. I am far less tolerant of the people who leave their cell phones on (that's plain carelessness or something worse) than the coughs and sneezes, which happen. And I have been fortunate not to experience some of the things some of the other posters have mentioned. However, orchestras do need to expand their audience base, and along with that comes a need to reach and educate a new audience. I agree that parents teaching their children is a big part of it, and it also helps to have the program notes, or the conductor or concert host, inform the audience of proper concert behavior or even warning the audience that they may be tempted to applaud at a point, but to hold back because it's not quite the end of the piece (such as the end of the third movement of the Tchaikovsky 6th, or where you're dealing with a solist-particularly a high-strung one--who wants to keep his/her concentration). But if the audience applauds at the end of a movement before the end of the piece, hey, let's live with it. We're making more people aware of this art form. They can and ultimately will learn the manners, let's not chase them out of the hall. This is not an exclusive club, you know; the more people we expose to classical music and the classical music concert experience, the better our chances to have fine orchestras to listen to in the future.