You can't enter Pure, Celine Dion's "A New Day" or the Improv at Harrah's Las Vegas wielding a camcorder -- even if you promise not to use it. But Las Vegas audience members and clubgoers are, technically, breaking this rule by the thousands every night.
Sometime next year, more than a billion camera phones will be in service worldwide, according to Alan Reiter, owner of the industry-watchdog Web site cameraphonereport.com. And the overwhelming majority of those will include video-recording capabilities.
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As video of comedian Michael Richards' rant demonstrated, just about anyone, anywhere now has the ability to shoot footage of anything and post it to the Internet to a potential audience of millions.
"It's a new world," Reiter says.
The Las Vegas entertainment industry has responded by largely banning the use of video phones, though not their possession.
"There's no recording of any kind allowed in our show," says Glenn Alai, press manager for Penn & Teller. "If you tried, our ushers would ask nicely for you to stop. If you continued, they'd ask you to leave.
"But our ushers are these 300-pound hulky guys, and people usually put it away after they're told nicely once."
The same policy, stated or unstated, holds true for all major Strip productions, as it does in strip clubs.
"If they're just taking a picture or videotaping a friend, that's OK," says Scores Cabaret's marketing director Shai Cohen. "But if they're taping one of the girls, we'll make sure that they delete it in front of us."
At the Improv, owner Budd Friedman says his waitresses constantly scan the crowd for anything fishy.
"If they spot a camera, they'll tell the room manager," he says.
Friedman says video-phone recording wasn't an issue before the Richards video.
"But I think it might become more of a problem now, because people are aware of it," he says. "It's like, 'Hey, I guess I can shoot those guys.' "
The rules at Strip nightclubs and concert venues are more lax. Protecting the privacy of celebrity clients, and the intellectual property of performers, is paramount. But the paying customers -- only a small percentage of whom would consider busting out their Treo to record Paris Hilton boozing it up in the next booth -- can't be inconvenienced, either.
"In general, we do not approve the use of camera phones," says Tao co-owner Noah Tepperberg, who admits that his club's no-video policy is "a very tough one to enforce." (A YouTube search for "Tao Las Vegas" bears this out.)
Jet is among the many clubs with no recording policy at all.
"Security guards hired by the celebrities might ask you to stop, though," says Steven Lockwood, marketing director for the hot spot at The Mirage.
Similarly, the three big concert promoters operating in town -- Andrew Hewitt, Concerts West and House of Blues -- let artists set their own policies.
"And I don't recall any artist ever making that request," says House of Blues promotions manager Stacie Schmidt.
Outside the entertainment world, members of 24 Hour Fitness are greeted with signs announcing: "No filming, videotaping or photography is permitted in the club without the written permission of management."
But nowhere in town is the actual possession of a video phone banned -- as it is by some espionage-wary corporations and courthouses elsewhere.
"Legally, a ban is possible," says Nevada ACLU general counsel Allen Lichtenstein. "When it comes to private businesses and their rules, it's not a constitutional issue."
But experts agree that it would be too inconvenient to collect phones from patrons on the way into a venue, then distribute them on the way out.
"And if you are making people walk back to their rooms -- which might be in other hotels -- they will more than likely just go somewhere else," says Michael Fuller, corporate marketing director for N9ne Group, whose properties include the Palms' ghostbar, Rain, Moon and Playboy clubs.
"Unless everyone in the city decided to do it, I can't see it happening."
However, most entertainment representatives admitted that the poor recording quality of video phones factors into their perceived threat. But the issue is bound to magnify as technology marches forward.
"The Michael Richards video was taken in bright stage lighting," Cohen says. "With the dark lighting we have here, it would be hard to make anything out."
According to Reiter, the American market will soon have video phones that shoot at 30 frames per second -- nearly as good as camcorders -- through lenses with two-times and three-times optical zooms.
"If technology permits a higher quality product," Fuller says, "then I think then it would be considered a threat."
