Seat to street in 2.5 seconds

Alan Gilbert takes up at the New York Phil soon.  Although his parents played and play there, and he's well respected by musicians, the audience, who know better, reportedly ran out in droves when he conducted Martinu and Dvorak.  A very similar concert was welcomed in Berlin, but what do Germans know about music, as a certain famous blogger says. So to protect the public, the NY Phil has installed a special "Listener Speedy Exit Ramp" so patrons can exit the auditorium, seat to street in 2.5 seconds.

"The new ramp, which resembles an extremely fast escalator, will run from the middle of the hall, between Rows M and N, and ascend to an exit door at the loge level. Patrons will now be able to find themselves on Broadway and West 65th Street in record time. “They should be able to exit the building in a matter of seconds, outta there even before the first idiot yells “brava,” said a Philharmonic spokesperson."

“This ramp .......is connected to a state-of-the-art computerized ‘Schenker Sensor’, which collects all the pitch data in previous passages, collates it and then can accurately identify the arrival of the true tonic. It then sends an electric impulse that throws a switch—on goes the escalator and, presto-change-o—out goes your patron.”

Read more about this on John Adams's site, complete with technical diagrams