It keep it on topic, I was sitting in the waiting room at my Subaru dealer waiting for maintenance to be done. At 9am, when the sales part opened, they turned on the music system, music (and not good music) played so loud that it would be difficult to hold a conversation.
That seems to be the new standard. Home depot, department stores, supermarkets, restaurants, malls, even gas stations. It is really becoming annoying. I have a list of restaurants that I can eat at, where the music is not too loud, but it’s a short list.
The only justification I can find is one survey that said people move quicker through stores if there is music. I find that a strange justification, as I would think they would want people to move slowly and perhaps buy more.
One method I like to use is this: Ask the store manager if there are any complaints about loud music. After he/she admits that they get a few, ask if there are any complaints that say the music is too soft. When they say no, suggest they draw a conclusion…
Another is to ask if anyone ever walks out because the music is too soft, as opposed to walking out because the music is too loud.
At one of those restaurants with the bar too, I asked the waitress to turn the music down so at least we could talk. She said the people at the bar liked it that way. I mean a band is one thing but recordings? I don’t understand it. Maybe it’s so people don’t have to talk and they can work their phones instead.
There’s a new Cumberland Farms gas station in Salem NH I went to ONCE a couple months ago as I was passing through. The speakers outside were so loud. I complained to the manager (but it fell on deaf ears - pardon the pun). He said his customers like it that way…well tell them to turn their hearing aids up. Never went back…and never will.
That strikes me as a cop out. Better guess is that management requires it.
One popular chain restaurant (PF Chang) told me that corporate management comes around periodically and checks the sound level for the “proper volume”.
If we find it difficult, think of the staff. Several waiters have told me they get daily headaches from the music.
I agree another one that I do not like is gas stations that have vidio screen’s that try to sell you somthing as far as resturant’s if I go into one I have never been to before if they have TV’s playing & no way to get away from them I walk out
The right music, at the proper sound level and appropriate for the type of store has been proven to be very effective and lure people to slow down and view more products and hopefully make additional purchases not initially planned.
My favorite is the Gas Station TV network, in which they show you some 20 second bit of stupid, and then tell you to “tune in next time” to see the next segment.
What? Do they really think people are going to plan out their fuel stops so they can be sure to catch the next unexciting episode?
We have a nice AAA baseball stadium here, and we used to have a good team. After I retired I finally had time to go to a ball game. I went once… During every pause in play they played very loud, very bad, music over very bad speakers. I left before the end of the game. I once had to threaten to go back to my truck to get a pair of sidecutters to cut the wire to the speakers to get them to turn down the music so I could eat at a Thruway restaurant.
“Modern” restaurants generate noise by music as well as by decorating in non-sound-absorbing walls and ceilings because studies allegedly show that sound stimulates the appetite. Noisy restaurants sell considerably more food. It’s an underhanded way of getting you to eat more.
Really fine dining doesn’t play this trick. But the bill!!!.. oh, the bill!!!
I was once years ago taken to a restaurant in Miami so expensive that each party had their own room… and full time server serving only them. There were no prices on the menu. It was great, and I sincerely appreciated that the (wealthy) person had done that for us, but I’d have been just as happy with a good hamburger.
Believe it or not my greatest complaint about loud music is from automobiles in traffic playing their favorite tunes, especially heavy bass tunes, on huge speakers that shake their car and the one next to it as well which is sometimes mine. Do some people think they are doing the public a favor by providing free entertainment when driving? I am often tempted to install one of those air powered train horns on my truck to drown out the racket from nearby wannabe DeeJays.
Huh, I thought younger people were broke with college expenses and so on and it is the older folks that have the money to spend. I’m not sure I’d shoo the people with money away when they are having a hard time staying in business.
Last fall I was in my regular drug store and overheard a couple of female employees complaining about the Beatles song that was playing in a repetitive loop on whatever satellite station the store was tuned in to. I told them not to worry, Christmas (music) was coming. Needless to say they were not amused.
My closest supermarket–which is surrounded by 3 “active adult” communities–used to play music that could only have come from an album entitled Music To Drive Mature Customers Away. Clearly, the manager of the supermarket must have liked Head Banger music, even if it is alien to the ears of most of his customers.
Well, I guess that I was not the only person who complained, because they now play music that is much less hostile to people over the age of 55 or so.