At a comedy club Barcelona, you will pay for every laugh you utter. Literally.
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The Teatreneu Club in Barcelona, Spain, is charging customers based on the number of times they laugh during its comedy shows, reports BBC. The laughs are tallied by an iPad with facial recognition software that is attached to the back of the seat in front of each customer.
This new experiment came about after new government taxes on theater tickets led to a drop off in ticket sales at the club. And, so far, the new policy appears to be driving up sales, at least slightly.
Each time a customer laughs, he or she will be charged 0.30 euros, with the cap set at 24 euros. Teatreneu has also introduced a mobile payment app that customers can use, in addition to a “pay-per-laugh season ticket.”
The pay-per-laugh system is gaining traction in Spain, with other theaters in the area mimicking the system.
A director of a comedy club in London offered a humorous take of the idea.
“Sounds fun, just so long as all the facial recognition data doesn’t get forwarded to the NSA,” said London’s 99 Club director James Woroniecki. “It’d be a big technical challenge — as people laugh so often at the 99 we’d have to install a cash machine by every seat.”
