Thread by @SexAtOxbridge, One year ago I was standing outside in the rain at Camden [...]

One year ago I was standing outside in the rain at Camden Stables trying to pull every possible string I had to get a ticket to see Harry Styles at Electric Ballroom.

It was a twelve hour exercise in treating everyone with nothing but kindness and reaping what you sow.

I naively thought it would be like the show at The Forum, where they were literally giving anyone who showed up on the day a ticket.

Then I found out the venue had a capacity of 1,500 and was like

I tried, like everyone, to buy tickets. But they sold out in like two seconds.

The thing to note is that this was a promotional show that was probably 75% friends, family and press. I would say that a maximum of 500 tickets went to fans. And I did not get one of them.

Then it came out that they were giving away tickets at the pop up shop, hence standing in the rain in Camden for about two hours before being let into the shop, where I promptly went and sat in front of the heater for half an hour.

Unsurprisingly, no one offered me a ticket.

Then my friend said she found a guy selling two tickets online and, knowing the risk and that this was most likely a scam, we decided to buy them.

It was indeed a scam but the idiot gave us a photo of his ID and bank details so that money was recovered eventually.

Eventually I decide to go to Electric Ballroom, where I started speaking with one of the bouncers outside while Harry was doing his sound check.

Keeping a straight face while hearing Harry singing his cover of Lizzo’s “Juice” should’ve won me the Oscar.

Anyway I’m talking to this woman and she’s really nice, but clearly fed up with people trying to get in, and I get to know her name and she tells me they are definitely not selling any tickets at the door, and after awhile I’m like, “Ok cool thanks.”

I decided to throw a Hail Mary and emailed someone I knew would have connections to Harry’s team and they forwarded it to someone who had control over promo ticket distribution asking if they could help.

Four hours before the show they emailed me. There were no tickets left.

For the first time in my life I’m like, “Wow. I have found something I can’t talk my way into.”

(It’s a gift...like I said if I were a Marvel superhero I would be Domino from Deadpool 2. A stranger told me I’d kissed the Blarney Stone and my friends say I live a “charmed life”)

My friend who got scammed came to meet me and we’re in the pub down the street having the most depressing dinner ever. I’m exhausted and cold and just bummed out. As is she, clearly.

But my life motto is, “Always ask. All they can say is no.” So I decide to go back to EB.

The same security guard is there and I go to say hi to her. She is now making anyone who doesn’t have a ticket stand on the other side of the street.

I tell her I’d been speaking to who emailed me and waiting to see if they could leave me a ticket at will call (

)

WHICH WASN’T A TOTAL LIE. I had* been waiting. I just left out the part where they said they couldn’t.

Then I’m like, “I’m going to go see if I can get a hold of her.”

There is a group of people outside now who, like us, were scammed. And they’re trying to get in.

My friend and I walk away while the security guard hears their sob stories, then come back and the security guard loses it. She’s like “THAT’S IT. EVERYONE LEAVE. YOU CANNOT STAND HERE.” Then she looks at me and is like, “Did you get a hold of her?”

And I’m like, “Not yet.”

So the security guard starts yelling at everyone else again, and then to avoid being a hypocrite and letting two randos stand there, she tells us to go into the lobby.

At this point there is like the slightest glimmer of hope because at least we’re inside. And even if we don’t get the tickets, if I had just heard the first two seconds of “Golden” before being bounced I could have died happy.

Eventually someone asks who the hell we are.

And I say, “Oh I was talking to so and so about promotional tickets” and drop some other info and names in. Turns out this person was in charge of distribution and is like, “Oh I’ll check for your name.”

I know he’s not going to find my name but I let him look.

He clearly doesn’t find any tickets with my name on it, having gotten a resounding “no” just hours earlier.

The show is starting in 15 minutes and I’m like, “Well we tried our best and we failed. The lesson here—never try.”

Then this man says, “You said you spoke to [redacted]? Let me go get them.”

I then panic and am like, “Oh no no no...that’s okay and—oh! Look I have an email from them I didn’t see! They said no!” And he’s like, “It’s fine, they’re right there.”

And I’m like

So I watch in slow motion as he goes to talk to them, points at me, and see the recognition and confusion on this person’s face who had very politely told me “lol absolutely not” a mere two hours earlier and am just standing there like

THEN they start walking towards me and I’m like, “This is it. This is how I die.”

I have never spoken quicker in my life to be like “I’msosorryIshowedhimyouremailandIknowyousaidnobutwewerescammedandjustcameincasewecoukdbuytick—“

And then they cut me off.

“You were SCAMMED?!” was the last thing I expected them to take from my babbling but then they’re like, “Oh my god. Hold on.”

And they leave my friend and I standing there like

I can hear people scream because the lights dim as I watch this person walk into the box office.

Then they come out holding two tickets and hands them to me and after I profusely thank them for way too long they’re like, “It’s what Harry would do.”

Still in shock, we get inside minutes before the show is about to start. We go to the loo and then accidentally end up in the VIP section due to an unmanned door, but deciding not to push our luck and run into the person who helped us somewhere we weren’t meant to be, we leave.

Also I made sustained eye contact with Jeffrey, who I had met a month earlier in LA, and didn’t feel like explaining to him how he knew me, so I bounced.

My friend usually sits at gigs due to a back issue but it was standing room only. There were about eight seats total, all on raised platforms. Two of which were empty.

We go and talk to the security guard there and he’s like, “if no one comes you can have them.”

I’m 5’3 so I’m like, “there’s no way I’m going to see anything” because we were literally the last people in and at the back.

The security guard waves us over and says, “If someone comes you have to move but you can sit here for now.”

And that my friends was the beginning of the best concert I’ve ever seen in my life (also the last)

At The Forum Stevie Nicks famously came out to sing with Harry and as the concert was ending it was looking like Harry’s Lizzo cover was the replacement for that.

THEN

Everyone went mental and I’m going crazy then I hear a scream next to me and it’s the security guard from outside. She’s like, “Eyyy! You made it in! This is insane!! I love Stormzy!” And we jam out to “Vossi Bop” together

This is a very long winded way of saying happy one year anniversary to the best night of my life

And to, of course, always treat everyone you meet with kindness, because it’s truly returned tenfold

I sent the person who gave me the tickets a gift after the show and they put me on the actual promo list for his April show, which was largely why I flew out here in March.

Harry is not only the namesake of my cat but also the reason I now live in the UK.

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