The Persistence of Fandom

I spend the majority of my time thinking of ways to fuel the flames of fandom and remind people that live entertainment is an amazing, blink-and-you-missed-it unique experience. Yesterday, my wife and daughter reminded me of just how amazing these experiences can be.

My 9 year-old daughter Zoe is a HUGE Taylor Swift fan.  She thinks my wife Emily and I merely tolerate Taylor but we love her too.  Having spent a lot of time in the music business, we have been fortunate to have had relatively easy access to tickets and we've seen our fair share of great shows.  So, when Taylor was set to hit her 5 night stint at Staples Center this past week, Zoe naturally just assumed she was going.  Not in an entitled way but in a "I love Taylor Swift so much why wouldn't we have gotten tickets" way.  We told her many times that we didn't have tickets.  Daddy works at Ticketmaster but we don't ticket Staples Center.  Daddy doesn't work at UMG anymore so we aren't part of company ticket buys.  Most importantly, Daddy spaced and forgot to actually buy tickets when they went on sale.  Meaningless distinctions to a 9 year-old.  She thought we were pranking her.  

Each concert played off and we were down to Taylor's last performance in her historic Staples run.  We checked TicketsNow and even Stubhub (gasp, the competition??) but tickets were outrageously expensive.  I cast a net to a bunch of my contacts but they reacted much the same way I would've...get in line, where were you 5 months ago, etc.  No luck.

Emily had heard you could go down to the box office and tickets may be released.  So, like the awesome mom she is, she decided to give it a shot.  

When she got there, she found this:

Easily a hundred people and (apologies for typecasting) most of the the people didn't look like your average Taylor Swift fan so their motives were a little questionable.  But, the kids were in school, didn't need to picked up until 2:38...why not stay and see what happens?  Four hours later, very little movement.  Tickets were being released but in dribs and drabs.  In the interim, Emily made friends with "Tony" who let's just say knew a few things about the ticket game.  Long story short, he became Emily's advocate and ultimately explained that whatever tickets would be released, would be released after the openers went on.  Well, Emily couldn't stay there all day and night now could she?  Tony said, "Go on home and get your babies.  Come on back around 8/8:30 and I'll save your spot in line."  He even offered to text her if anything changed.  Emily left, disappointed, but hey...she gave it a shot.

Tony texted a few times throughout the day, keeping her updated, and encouraging her to come on back that night.  Now I'm a cynic, so I'm thinking of a variety of scenarios that all end with Emily and a sobbing Zoe standing outside of Staples at 9pm being forced into paying way too much to get in.  What mom wants to disappoint her devastated little fan at the pearly gates of T-Swizzle mania?  I mean, they are already there so Tony could just be keeping an easy sale warm.  

7:30pm rolled around and they decided to go.  To paraphrase Bilbo Baggins, when you walk out your front door, you never know what might happen.

Well:

True to his word, Tony saved their place.  Sometimes the kindness of strangers is all you need.   

BUT...the next hour ultimately resulted in just a few tickets being released and the box office shutting down.

Emily had been prepping Zoe but Zoe is a believer in the way only a young girl with fresh eyes of the world can truly believe.  Zoe said not to worry, that it will all work out.  "We'll get in.  You'll see Mommy."  Well Tony made it his mission to get them in.  He asked Emily & Zoe to hang out by the box office and returned a bit later offering two tickets at a reasonable price.  Were they real?  Tony said he'd walk them to the scanner to make sure they got in.  Sure enough, they were good to go!  

Did I mention the kindness of strangers?  Zoe never gave up and now they were there with Taylor just about to take the stage.  Despite wanting to, Emily never gave up either and did everything she could to make sure that Zoe had a forever memory.  Can you say Supermom?  I'm ashamed at what I would've done had I been there instead of her...

As if that weren't enough, the concert gods rewarded Zoe for believing because then this happened:

Oh, hello Taylor's Mom!

And this:

Concert t-shirt to wear to school the next day?  Check.  One-of-a-kind epic experience with Mommy?  Check.

Emily got a little thrill too with Justin Timberlake making a surprise appearance and Lisa Kudrow singing "Smelly Cat" as Phoebe Buffay.  Something for the kids and something for the moms.  Good on you Taylor!

You still reading?  Well if so, here's the moral of the story.  Fans don't give up and they don't stop believing.  That's what makes them Fans (with a capital F).  I'd bend over backwards (and often do) to see my favorites (GO PACK!!!).  

And, I get to work hard to help fans have big smiles and even bigger life experiences that only live entertainment can provide.  The business of ticketing isn't perfect, but we're trying.  I'm trying.  Fans deserve it.