On a Sunday
night in late February, I found myself awake at 11pm. This in itself was highly
abnormal, and even more so was the fact that I was at home in my bedroom,
forcibly stopping myself from falling into the divine world of slumber. Why on
Earth was I doing this? Well, the time had finally come to the V Festival 2012
line up to be announced, and a sneaky rumour was doing the rounds on the
internet, proclaiming that my favourite boys in the world, The Killers, would
be headlining the show. No, surely not! I’d made myself a promise over two
years ago that I would be at their first show when they came back from hiatus. Unfortunately,
annoying things like university had gotten in the way last year, and this was
the first time that the opportunity was to present itself at a time when I was
actually able to go! Oooh!
So, when the
announcement came that they really were going to headline, I expressed about as
much enthusiasm as I could for the time of night: I bbm-ed my roommate so that
this news was the first thing she’s see in the morning, then fell asleep with
echoes of “LONDOOOOOOOON” pounding through my tired brain.
A few days
later, all of my ideas were in place. Everything was in perfect order in my
head, and now all I had to do was acquire the festival tickets, the flights and
the accommodation, and I’d be on my way in a few short months!
Tickets were to
go on sale at 12pm my time, and thus from 11.15am, I had found myself
refreshing ticketmaster.co.uk’s website at least every couple of seconds, just
in case tickets came on sale early. The V Festival website was also open, as
was twitter, so that I could proceed to freak out with my fellow Victims. I was only slightly nervous, still thinking
that the entire thing was a ridiculous idea, or that my mother’s agreement to
it was going to turn out to be some hugely twisted prank. But eventually, the ticket sales opened, and I
entered my information with shaking fingers. The timer at the bottom of the
page, counting down to the expiry of my tickets was not helping my nerves at
all. I entered the credit card number incorrectly three times, before realizing
my mistake, and clicking on ‘proceed’ exactly as the offer expired. Fail. By now
it was a couple of minutes into ticket sales, and the website was completely flooded
with other people feeling just like I was. Now I had to wait over ten minutes
to try again, during which time my mind was in complete mental shutdown. What if
this was my last chance to see them again? What if they didn’t return to SA on
their tour, and what if I couldn’t make any of the other shows? What if, what
if, what if…
By the time I was
able to try again, I got an error message saying that tickets were sold out. “Try
again” said my Victims friends. I tried again. Still sold out. Again. Sold out.
I gave up.
Eventually realizing
that perhaps the other venue was not sold out, I gave that one a try. An extremely
stressful five or so minutes later, I’d successfully entered the credit card
details and pressed ‘proceed’ on tickets for the second performance. After printing
out my receipt, I still was not convinced that I’d actually gotten the tickets.
I screamed down the phone to my mom, but it still had not hit me properly. Neither
had the fact that I was also to see Snow Patrol, whom I had been wanting to see
live since 2009!
I still don’t
think it has quite sunk it. I’m seeing The Killers. I’m seeing Snow Patrol. I’m
going to England. Bring on August!
