BRUCE DICKINSON Explains Why GHOST-Style 'Phone Ban' Would Be 'Very Difficult' To Enforce At IRON MAIDEN Concerts

During an appearance on the August 14 episode of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson addressed the band's request for fans to put their phones away while attending concerts on the British heavy metal legends' recently launched "Run For Your Lives" world tour. Other acts, such as TOOL, have also employed a similar approach, requesting fans stay off their phones until the final song of their set. Meanwhile, Swedish metallers GHOST have made their entire 2025 tour a phone-free experience — with attendees maintaining possession of their phones at all times, secured in Yondr pouches — after playing a pair of phone-free shows in Los Angeles in 2023 for the filming of the "Rite Here Rite Now" concert film.

Dickinson told "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, I can only speak from my personal point of view. I've witnessed the GHOST thing [where no phones were allowed] now two or three times, and it is a totally different experience. People talk to each other. They behave like human beings with each other. They're not jumping over seats, trying to take selfies and stuff like that. They're concentrating on each other and the joy of being with a band and the experience and in the moment. It's what music should be, of bringing people together, not having somebody just like focused on 'me and my little narcissistic two-inch screen.' And also, they don't take the phone off you. You keep it with you in your little baggie. They're not stealing your phone. But I think there are, in truth, some practical limitations to it. "

Bruce continued, referencing GHOST's approach of requiring attendees to seal their phones in Yondr pouches, purpose-built phone-locking pouches designed to unlock when a concert or experience is over: "It's relatively — relatively — easy to do in an arena setting, 'cause people all come in and out through entrances and exits and things like that. So it's relatively easy to do. Where it gets difficult is when you start going to football stadiums and things like that. The quantity of people moving in and out, the number of little phone baggage you get, I think — and I was talking to Tobias [Forge, GHOST mastermind] about this the other night [when Bruce saw GHOST's concert in San Diego on August 10], and he acknowledges that as soon as GHOST start… You go to a festival. As soon as you end up in a festival situation, there's no way on on God's green Earth you're gonna be able to put a hundred thousand or fifty thousand people, who are coming in and going out and sleeping in tents and stuff like that. How are you gonna police that? You can't. So there are, I think, some limitations on it."

Dickinson added: "Again, if you're gonna do that… Everybody knows if you go to see a GHOST show, you put your phone in a baggie at the moment. So that's clear from the get-go. But I think that as far as MAIDEN is concerned, we didn't advance that upfront with people. So it's not fair if people have bought a ticket expecting they're gonna be able to use their phones to try and then say, 'Oh no, you have to put your phone in the baggie.' 'Nobody told me about that,' yada, yada, yada. So the other thing as well is we're doing a lot of outdoor shows now. So that kind of knocks that whole thing into touch. So our thing was a polite request: 'Look, just try not sitting there having the stupid phone in front of your face.' And the annoying ones are the semi-professional guys that they've got a web site and they just think, 'Oh, yeah, well, I paid the ticket. Therefore I own the right to do a full-length video of X, Y, and Z.' Well, actually, no, you don't. And that's one good thing now is that YouTube people will take that stuff down [when they are asked to do so]. But if somebody wants to put up a video of them bouncing up and down, 'This is me having fun at a show,' it's kind of harmless."

Asked by "Trunk Nation" host Eddie Trunk if Bruce has noticed, during the recently completed European leg of the "Run For Your Lives" tour, that most MAIDEN fans respected the band's request to put away their phones during the shows, Dickinson said: "Yeah. It depends on different places, different attitudes and things like that. In general, I'd say that the real diehard fans, who are basically all the people who are down the front, respected it and they got it. So, yeah, most of them respected it. And it was blindingly obvious when there was one person or something in the middle of a whole bunch of people and he was having his phone [out and filming], and you could see people going, 'Hey, hey, hey. What are you doing? Come on. Put it away. We're trying to have fun here. It's not all about you.'

"So, yeah, it's one of those things that will go on and on and on, but I think at a certain point, a band becomes too big that it's very difficult to make it work physically," Bruce explained. "You've got fifty thousand people — that's tough to make it work. Fifty thousand people outdoors, it's, like, come on. You don't wanna get to the point where you're feeling like there's some sort of guards at some concentration camp looking to see if the guy's got his phone out. There's that fine line."

Last month, Bruce was asked by Charlie Kendall of Charlie Kendall's Metalshop if putting away the phone is "a requirement now to attend" an IRON MAIDEN show. Bruce clarified: "It's not a requirement. It's a request. It's a polite request.  What is the point in paying all this money and turning up and staring at a tiny little box for, like — I don't know — however long. I mean, first of all, MAIDEN's show is two and a bit hours long, so your arm's gonna get real tired."

This past May, MAIDEN manager Rod Smallwood took to the band's web site to share a post titled "Put away your phones and get ready to Run For Your Lives!" in which he urged fans to experience the shows "in the moment" rather than on smaller screens at a later date.

"We really want fans to enjoy the shows first hand, rather than on their small screens," Smallwood wrote. "The amount of phone use nowadays diminishes enjoyment, particularly for the band who are on stage looking out at rows of phones, but also for other concertgoers.

"We feel that the passion and involvement of our fans at shows really makes them special, but the phone obsession has now got so out of hand that it has become unnecessarily distracting especially to the band. I hope fans understand this and will be sensible in severely limiting the use of their phone cameras out of respect for the band and their fellow fans."

Less than two weeks later, Smallwood called out fans for their concert phone etiquette, thanking those who "kept their phones down" and respecting "the band and their fellow fans" and shading those who didn't obey during the opening show of the European leg of MAIDEN's "Run for Your Lives" tour.

"It is so much better when they can see you unencumbered and that drives them on without that distraction," he wrote of the band. "For the selfish few that didn't and just had to keep videoing... I wish you nothing but a very sore arm!"

Smallwood clarified that the concerts don't need to be completely phone-free. "As I said before, by all means take the odd quick pic as a memento of a great night," he added, "but otherwise please keep your phone in your pocket."

In the same statement, Rod thanked fans for the "amazing welcome" they've given MAIDEN's new touring drummer Simon Dawson, who "felt your support from the start — and asks me to thank you all."

MAIDEN's request for fans to put away their phones came just months after GHOST enacted a phone ban for anyone attending shows on their ongoing "Skeletour".

Back in 2012, Dickinson blasted a fan at a MAIDEN concert in Indianapolis, Indiana for paying more attention to his cell phone than to the band's performance. "You've been texting for the last fucking three songs," Bruce said. "You're a wanker."