And we found out that was because Universal Studios didn't open until 9:00 am. We had to wait outside the gates for 45 minutes. We were third in line behind two teenage Victorious concert experts and a mother with a child about ten years old or younger. The teenagers were only there for the concert and planned on standing in line for eleven hours. A mother was with them, but she just got them through the gate and then left. They had to be 12 or 13 years old. I was stunned. We listened to their stories of stalking the cast at hotels and seeing them in concert at Hershey Park. People are nuts I thought, but then again here I was.
When the turnstiles opened and we pushed through Madison and Darcy, along with a small crowd, began running toward the theater where the Q&A would be held. About halfway there employees stopped us and told us we had to wait until nine. Immediately, the woman who had been standing in front of us started complaining. She had been told that only 100 tickets would be given out for the Q&A, and despite several of us telling her it was 1300, she insisted we were wrong. The employees had absolutely no idea or answers to anything and mostly stood around with wide, vacant, or shell shocked eyes. Eventually someone told us that the tickets to the concert would be handed out first and pointed us in the opposite direction.
Off we ran. Darcy ended up directly behind the two teenage girls who were first in line, having ignored the Q&A line. Again, employees knew nothing. Finally someone arrived with a big roll of tickets and one employee began tearing them off, handing them out, and fielding questions to which she didn't know the answer. All we got from it was these tickets would assure us a spot on the field (the concert venue was outdoors on concrete and astro turf, the stage covered) before anyone else. We could stand one person in line all day and still meet up with her at eight that night. Darcy wanted to do that, but we said no. Off we ran to get the tickets for the Q&A.
We did not have to rush. We were some of the first to arrive and receive our tickets. The employee there told us the gate would open at twelve thirty or one o'clock and to return around that time. The venue did hold 1300 and that was how many tickets they would be passing out. We left to find some breakfast.
Darcy made us return at 11:30 where she joined a small group of girls and boys at an area they had roped off with visqueen for the Q&A. Tom, Madison, and I found a covered and shaded area with table and chairs and sat down to wait. A little after twelve o'clock an employee appeared and we tried to get to Darcy to stake our place in line. It wasn't easy as the rush was just starting. There was no line. The employees tried to get one started, but without barriers like the ones at the rides where you are forced to march in single file, he wasn't getting any corporation. He eventually gave up, opened the visqueen gate, took tickets, and ignored the running to the front of another rope just to the left of the bottom of the stairs into the theater.
Darcy and Madison ended up at the front with Tom and I several feet behind them and twenty other people. The line behind us began filling up slowly. We weren't too packed in at the beginning. We could sit down, which most of us did, and move around our little space. Darcy and Madison were having a grand time at the front talking to kids and listening to Victorious music. We could communicate with them via text. Tom and I got to know the parents around us, many of whom we had met in line at the entrance or while getting tickets.
Slowly, and I mean s l o w l y, the time ticked and ticked away. The line began growing and the people behind us began inching forward, pushing us up against one another. We had been told we would be let in at 1:45 pm. That was a lie. The animal show began at 12:30 in the theater, went 20 minutes, and then had to be cleaned and set up for the Q&A. A woman behind us passed out. A woman in front of us asked for someone to come by and sell us water. A manager appeared and lied about getting us water and letting us in. A red headed kid (not the one in the picture) around 15 years old suddenly moved through our group gently until he stopped right in front of us. Some of the parents began asking how we would be let in so that the people behind us didn't crush our children. The employees called back the manager who called security and then assured us all that it would be organized. 1:45 came and went. We were told we would be let in at 2:00 pm. Another lie. I started to get claustrophobic and thought about attacking the woman in front of me for the bottle of water that the manager finally brought her. We were told if we left the line we wouldn't be able to get back in again. I wondered again why I was doing this. Up ahead of us our kids seemed not to mind any of the going ons around us.
At about 2:15 the rope came down and the first wave of people were let up the stairs. They did not follow the directions of walking up the stairs, but instead pushed and shoved and ran like idiots to secure seats. Tom and I were in the second wave and we got separated as I was desperate to see if my girls, who had been in the first wave, were safe in seats. They were, but Darcy had lost her shoe. It magically reappeared on the step next to her after the show so I think she must have lost it there instead of up the first flight in the beginning.
We hadn't a clue who the three cast members would be at the Q&A, but the theater was jammed pack with 1300 people by the time they finally arrived on stage. I only recognized two out of the three males, one being the kid who has a relationship with a puppet on the show. The three cast members, Matt Bennett, Leon Thomas III, and Avan Jogia, came out full of enthusiasm and wonder that this many people had actually shown up. They all took their own photos with their cameras and were very informative and gracious.
There were two Universal employees in the stands who came around and picked kids who raised their hands. These kids were chosen to ask the three guys questions. They ranged from "How did you get started in the business?" to "What is your favorite episode of Victorious?" There was also a host down on the floor with the cast members to keep things moving and who asked his own questions like, "Where is Rex?" (That is the puppet and he was playing baseball with his Little League team)
I found the Q&A delightful, but too short. It was over in about thirty minutes, and I thought bringing three of the female cast members in after that would have been a nice surprise. I'm not sure how these things work, but seriously these are young actors who have more stamina then thirty minutes. It is interesting to all of us how show business works, especially for kids, and after waiting in a sardine packed group for over two hours I thought we all deserved more. Little did I know what I was in store for next!
We filed out of the theater to find it was raining. On went the ponchos. We started toward the Shrek ride because that was where the screening of the Victorious episode was to be shown. It was called a premiere screening so we all assumed it would be an episode from the new season, but alas, it was not. Nor was it a decent episode. I hadn't seen it, but Tom, who hasn't ever seen the show looked over at me about ten minutes into it with a look that said, "You have got to be kidding me? This is what we are doing this for?"
We left the screening and Darcy begged us to head toward the concert venue so she could check on the line. About a hundred people were inside barriers like caged animals braving the light rain. We nixed on joining them and instead went into a restaurant and got some food. When we exited the cast of Victorious was on stage doing a sound check and Darcy begged again to join the caged people despite the fact that we could see everything from where we were standing. Tom told her okay and we approached the man guarding the barriers, which where at the very back of the venue.
We presented our coveted tickets, but he held up his hand and asked what time we had gotten them. Perplexed and annoyed I told him 8:30 am and must have looked like I would take him down because he opened one side of the barrier and waved us through to another area away from the people. He got on his walkie talkie and told someone that he had a family that had been there since 8:30. I told him it was actually 8:00 am. In a second another man with a head set appeared and told us to follow him. He opened up another barrier and we walked out into the bare concert venue. By now the rain was picking up in volume. We trooped past employees squeegeeing water from the astro turf until we reached an area to stage right that was barricaded. He moved aside the barriers and herded us inside. An events employee named Kim was our master. We got to know her well.
On stage the cast kept singing and checking sound. Everyone would scream and clap after they finished and they would wave and thank everyone. The rain began coming down in torrents. Then came thunder, and of course where there is thunder there is lightning, and Florida is the 2nd lightning capital in the world. Kim disappeared. The man with the head set let in two other families, one we had stood next to in the Q&A line and a family with a hearing impaired girl who told great stories to keep us entertained. Down came the rain! Crack came the lightning! Boom came the thunder! The cast on stage had stopped performing (probably because someone told them it was dangerous) and instead stood in their safe and dry stage taking pictures of all of us nutcases standing out in the rain waiting for them.
But like storms are in Florida this one was moved quickly through and out came the sun to beat down on us plastic poncho wearing idiots until we were baked. Kim reappeared and let us leave for a bathroom break and return to our spot. She too told interesting stories of events she had seen while working and kept us entertained. While Madison and I had been in the restrooms she had had to handle an irate father who insisted on entry, but Tom said Kim knew what she was doing and handled him professionally and quietly. She restored my faith in Universal.
At 5:30 pm an excitement began building among those in the middle section. Kim stood at attention, her walkie talkie in hand, and than suddenly she opened our barrier and told us to have a good time. We were the first barrier to get in and we actually just strolled right up to the stage while the middle section was let in screaming and running. Darcy and Madison got right in front while Tom and I hung back a few rows with the parents. As the middle barrier started closing in our space became limited. There was no way I could have sat down. We were on concrete, but the small pieces of astro turf that were spaced between the concrete walkways were full of water, as were my shoes. I was standing arm to arm with Tom on one side and an Indian woman on my right. Suddenly two hands appear between me and the woman and this voice says, "Excuse me. Excuse me, I just need to get right up here." I turned around to find the same red headed kid that had suddenly appeared in the our group at the Q&A.
Me: "What are you doing?"
Him: "I just need to get up there."
Me: "No, that isn't going to happen. You are quite the little crowd pusher aren't you? I saw you do that at the Q&A, but you have a nice spot right where you are."
Him: (looking at my Steelers poncho I still had on) "Oh, you're security."
He plopped down right at our ankles and stayed that way for about an hour. The rest of us stood. In the beginning we chatted with the parents around us exchanging stories and relating concert memories. The family in front of us came prepared with a cooler and so they gave me a bottle of water so I wouldn't feel the way I felt in the Q&A. All of that happiness last about 30 minutes and we still had two hours to go. One of the dads and I kept bending over and touching our toes to stretch every twenty minutes or so. Some of the parents left for bathroom breaks and came back telling war stories of trying to get back in. Eventually security started appearing at the front of the stage and wandering. My red headed kid stood up and began again, his hands appearing between our shoulders.
Him: "Excuse me."
Me: "Stop. Just stop."
Him: "I just need to get up there. I want to videotape it with this camera."
Me: "You have a fine spot to videotape right there. You're three feet from the stage."
Him: "Excuse me. I just need...."
Me: "All of our children are in front of us. That's why the parents are here. Those are our kids down there. We need to keep an eye on them. So just settle back and relax. We have two hours to go still. Maybe I'll change my mind by the time the concert starts."
Him: "Actually we have one hour and twenty-six minutes."
I didn't kill him. He tried one more time with at the 45 minute mark and I just flat out told him, "NO, you are not getting in front of us!" and that was the end of that. He did enjoy the concert and he did get his videotaping and he did end up next to me when that family moved on about halfway through the show.
It was the longest bout of standing I've ever done. The longest bout of standing elbow to elbow with strangers I have ever done. The rain held off, but the sun was relentless. We were just happy that the evening was upon us and that we weren't doing this in the heat of the afternoon. I was sure I wasn't going to make it. I kept thinking that we still had an hour of this after the concert started. I was sure that I wouldn't be walking the next day.
Suddenly a man appeared behind Tom shouting for his son. He kept inching forward, reaching his arms out toward the front as if beseeching his son to appear. Thinking he was for real I explained to him that all of the children in front of us, three rows deep, were children of all of these parents in this vicinity, that his child was not there. He said he was a red head and that he was up there. I told him he wasn't up there, but wondered if he were blind to the kid behind me. Then the man started dropping the f-bomb angrily telling all of us that he knew his kid were there. The woman behind me who had a four year old and another younger one (made me wonder who was the real fan) told him to watch his mouth. Tom got into it with him. I was beginning to worry when suddenly five security men appeared in the front, stood up on boxes and told him to carefully move to his left to meet them at the end. He didn't argue and soon he was gone. We all cheered. About twenty minutes later a woman appeared and began shouting for her daughter. She stood up on the railing and seemed genuine, although the concert was only minutes away from starting. She had lost her daughter and kept telling us to scream out her name. I wondered how in the world you could lose a child squeezed in like sardines, but eventually she too was hauled off by security and we never knew what happened there.
Finally the music started, and the screaming began, and the cast came out on stage to give us what we had been waiting for...the concert.
Victoria Justice did most of the singing with the group as her back-up. They eventually left the stage and she sang several songs, a few that I actually knew from Darcy. She isn't any great singer, but she is wholesome and puts on a decent show. It's a great starter concert for kids. She interacted with the audience, explaining that she too was a Florida girl having grown up in Hollywood, FL. She told us how she got her start right there at Universal. She kept thanking her fans for making her what she is today. They all seemed really humble and surprised that this many people would come for them. They thanked us a lot. I found them sincere and refreshing.
After Victoria Justice had performed she invited out two of the guys who sang songs they had written for the show. Then Ariana Grande came out and performed with Victoria Justice on a new song they had for the new album. Then everyone came out and performed with the guys teaming up and the girls teaming up. They did one final big number, thanked us for coming, and then it was over.
By then it was dark and we had about twenty minutes before Universal did the big firework show. We filed out of the venue. Many of the people headed for the exit. We headed the opposite direction and watched the fireworks; well, Tom and Darcy stood and watched them. Madison and I sat on benches in the smoking section of Universal and rubbed our wet, aching feet and enjoyed cups of complimentary water that Darcy brought us from a nearby restaurant. I figured I'd watch the fireworks another visit. Plus, I knew we still had the long walk to the car.
We didn't get back to our unit until almost 11:00 pm. A fifteen hour day. That I WILL NEVER DO AGAIN. I'm glad we did it. I'm glad to have done this for my daughters. It is something they will remember, I hope, and it was something different to do for a birthday. The only other thing to have made it perfect would have been to have had my niece, Gabby, with us. I knew how much it would have meant to her and so I tried to tweet her and send her pics, but having her with us would have been the icing on the cake. Maybe now I will have to do it again...
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