Thinking in Public
Here's a business idea: the branded sticker for the bar. I think that's about to become a thing. Meta glasses. Surveillance. AI. A place that says no pictures will thrive.
Some clubs already do it. Mixmag lists clubs that put a sticker over guests' phone cameras at the door.
Berlin's Berghain puts a sticker over every guest's phone camera and removes guests who break the rule. Bassiani in Tbilisi does the same for privacy: the club is a haven for the LGBTQI+ community and has faced smear campaigns and police hostility. London's fabric has banned photos and video on the dancefloor since 1999, so people stay in the moment. All three are in Mixmag's 2021 round-up.
Cameras have moved onto faces. EssilorLuxottica says it has sold more than 7 million pairs of Meta's Ray-Ban glasses. The recording light on them is small and hard to see in daylight, and photography in public is broadly legal in most places, so the person being filmed has little recourse (The Next Web, May 2026). A venue cannot change the law. It can set a rule at its own door.
Picture a bar that prints 200 stickers with its logo and hands one to each guest with a small sign: "Phones stay in your pocket tonight." The cost is one print run. After a month the owner can see whether guests keep the sticker, ask for more, and come back. I think a room where nobody is filming is something people will pay a cover charge for.
The sticker carries the venue's brand. Print yours with your logo and hand one to every guest on the way in.