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First, I just want to say that even though security & police ended up chasing us, and even though the venue started confiscating glowsticks at the door, Kat fans STILL managed to get 2,000 glow sticks in to show their support. I think that's pretty cool. So here's the story . . .I'll start by saying that it was wonderful to see Katharine live onstage for the first time. She is such an exquisite performer. Her voice, her face, her hair, her figure, her moves, her smile: PERFECT. And it’s hard to shake that feeling that when she looks right at you, somehow she knows exactly who you are. Anyway, I’d love to give you a “play by play” on what my reaction was to seeing Katharine perform for the first time,but I really have to tell you that much of my first Kat concert experience is a blur because this was such a "working concert:” Texting the chat McLiaison, texting other volunteers, watching for glow sticks, reminding concertgoers around me to chant & wave their glow sticks at the right time, and just being McGeneralish about the whole thing..haha. It's alright because I knew that I would have the Anaheim concert the next day to really sit back & relax and enjoy watching my very favorite singer ever on stage, and I’m so excited to be sharing that experience with my daughter tonight!! So here’s what I can recall of last night and our homecoming tribute adventure. It’s very long, and I’m sure I probably left out details, like about how Katidol kindly walked me back to my car after the show because it was late and Staples Center is not in the best part of town. (Katidol is SO sweet, by the way.)
BEFORE THE SHOW
All of our volunteers knew what we were up against. 21 of them confirmed that they would be there, and all 21 showed up!! It was so cool to actually be standing in a group of people who I’d come to know well as screen presences, and now here we all are, live and in person. That was at trip. Plus, we had three more Kat fans report in later (fortunately there were a few extra shirts for them) -- more about our amazing Canadian contingent later.
The group of fans that all came together to show their love and support for Katharine with a special glowsticks homecoming tribute is really amazing. I really need to share with you how Kat's fans came together over this project. Not only did 24 people show up to hand out the glowsticks knowing that there might be issues with security, etc., but there were others as well. (Note: Chad and I tried desperately over the entire 2 weeks, even with help from people close to Katharine, to get the go-ahead from 19 mgmt, but it never came. We chose not to share this with people online because I didn’t want you all to worry. I hope you don’t mind.)
Here are the heroes of this homecoming effort for our beloved Katharine: Of course, there’s Chad who came up with the idea and worked with me on the planning and legwork. And there were all the fans who so generously donated toward glowsticks and shirts. There were those who designed the awesome volunteer T-shirts. Plus, a Kat fan from Canada who came out of the woodwork and insisted on buying me tickets to the show. (Thank you!!) One of those tickets went to our volunteer Roseselavy, who had also offered to help without a ticket. She sat next to me at the show and ended up being the most awesome second in command ever. Her video of Katharine & the glowsticks is phenomenal. An anonymous fan also contacted me saying s/he really wanted to contribute to the project but had missed the window for contributing on KMF. I told him/her about Maddie, who was driving hundreds of miles from Stockton to help out, so this anonymous Kat fan bought Maddie a ticket! Maddie, I know you don’t mind me sharing that this kind gesture came at a troubling time, and I know how grateful you were for the kindness. I have to tell you that when Maddie found out about about the offer she was SO thankful … but added: “Do I still get to pass out glowsticks?!”
Okay, so Puyatboys got a little tied up with work & traffic, so when the glow sticks finally(!) arrived at the venue, we pulled out the boxes in the parking structure & were surprised to find that within the boxes there were 120 separate bundles of glow sticks all tightly sealed in aluminum bags, like film wraps. So here we are in the parking structure, trying to hide from security and rip open all these bags so we could take all the glow sticks out w/us. Some of us were even using our teeth … haha, until Cherryblossom intelligently reminded us to use the convenient tear strip that was already on the bag! We were frantic .. hadn’t noticed it.
Once we all had our glow sticks, all 24 or so of the volunteers surrounded the venue (which is HUGE, like a small city, it felt like at the time), carefully avoiding security & bicycle police. Within a short time, onenicholl came up and told me he had been told by security not to hand out glow sticks. It was just so early in the game that I said, “Go somewhere out of sight, then, because the rest of us are going to keep going.” We had a good ½ hour after that, during which time a couple more volunteers called in saying that security was taking away their glow sticks. The rest of us kept going. It wasn’t until the following incident that I finally decided to call off the operation. . .
Yes, it is true that Katidol did get chased by a police officer. Katidol was wearing his orange volunteer T-shirt over another collared shirt, and as he ran, he was pulling off his orange shirt & ducking around the corner to go incognito. hahaha
Oh, here's something I want to tell you! Every single volunteer said that, as they were passing out glow sticks, EVERYONE we handed them to were VERY receptive (alright, well, maybe except for a couple of snotty teenage Taylor fans). A huge number of concertgoers said, "Oh, we love Katharine. She was our favorite” or “Yay, Katharine is our hometown girl.” And most were happy to even take in extras to pass around to people around them. I honestly think that the people who cheer for Katharine are just not as crazy loud as the whacky teenage girls who scream for the boys. At one point, I ran across a Katharine fan who said she had donated toward the glowsticks and was happy to see us handing them out!
It was so funny when people kept coming up to us before the concert and going, "Are you the 'orange shirts'? Where do I get my extra glowsticks to bring in?" Haha..it was like a code or something. The Kat Pack was SO on the move. And then we would give them their glow sticks to deposit somewhere on their person. Three of the people who came up to us "orange shirts" ended up being wearing them and becoming our heroic “Canadian contingent” – two young ladies and their mother (who took a bunch of photos of the volunteers - if you're out there, please post them or email them to me.) They snuck SO many glowticks into the venue. Their section lit up like a Christmas tree. One of the Canadian girls had 150 glowsticks hidden all over her body. Haha, she was walking like a robot, and just before she went in, a glowstick dropped, but she couldn't bend over to pick it up because the glowsticks would’ve bent and she would have started to glow!
All the volunteers knew to bring satchels & bags to carry their glow sticks in. A couple of people forgot, or weren't able to, but fortunately "Cherryblossom" from IDF had brought extra carrying bags. Cherryblossom is so on top of things. She even brought sodas for everyone, and I so loved her at the concert. You should have seen her at intermission full-on handing out a bunch of glow sticks to the middle floor section, handing them out so sweetly and efficiently, too, like a teacher giving out treats to her class. Our Hawaiian contingent, GimmeAHSherry & her sister, brought macadamia nut treats for all the volunteers. And Maddie handed out the T-shirts. Thank you to all the volunteers!
THE CONCERT
The tickets we got for the show were directly to stage right and listed as “slightly view obscured,” so I figured they probably weren't that great but might be a good vantage point from which to get pictures of the whole auditorium, maybe even w/Kat in them. They turned out to be AMAZING seats - we were like 30 ft from stage right, where Kat spent PLENTY of time, I might add. heehee
At one point, Katharine went down to the pit and did this awesome dance w/some pretty sexy moves RIGHT there in front of concertgoers in the front row. One of those concertgoers just happened to be Puyatboys, who later told me he couldn't help but scream like a teenage girl! (sorry, I just had to share that, buddy - no one blames you a bit). I was SO thinking of him when she did that. AND Puyatboys caught it all on videotape!
Throughout the concert, before Kat came on, we were all so nervous we could barely sit still, waiting to see how the glow sticks were going to go, wondering how many had actually made it in. It was so cool to see more and more glowsticks coming on throughout the arena as the night progressed. The distribution of glowsticks could not have been better if we’d planned it – floor section, nosebleed seats, VIP section, every single section of the arena was sprinkled with orange glowsticks. There were lots of "plants" set to bring in extras, but I'm amazed we got in as many as we did. We estimated about 2,000.
Love to all,
Vadia
P.S. Congratulations on making your way down to the bottom of this loooong recap.