Starstruck

What do you do the day after you have said your final goodbye to your mum? Well I think most people would just collapse in a heap! Not me!

I had started going to TV recordings with my friends a couple of years before. It’s easy to do. You just apply for the shows you want to see from the ‘Applause Store’ website and wait to see if your application has been successful. The tickets are free but if you apply for general admission there are no guarantees you will get in on the day. However, I became a ‘Priority Member’ for a small fee. This didn’t guarantee getting the tickets online but did guarantee getting in on the day if you did. It’s a separate queue for tickets and they put aside a percentage of the tickets for members. Sometimes it means better seats but not always.

Some time earlier I had applied for the 2011 X Factor live semi-finals. Membership doesn’t apply to those tickets so it’s still a gamble whether you’d get in. It would be a long day and a lot of waiting in a queue but I invited my friend and her daughter to join me and my daughter and we decided to chance it. It would be nice to do something exciting after the draining couple of weeks we’d had.

These particular live shows are held in the Fountain Studios in Wembley. I booked a ‘Park on my Drive’ space and drove us up to Wembley. I highly recommend this method of parking. We’ve done it a few times now and it’s pretty straightforward and usually much cheaper than using car parks, especially for big, popular concerts.

The drive up to London was both stressful and hilarious. I took my husband’s car which had a Sat Nav with the voice of Homer Simpson. At one point we lost signal and ended up on the M40 on our way to Oxford! How did we manage that?! My friend who has the face of an angel and the mouth of a sailor had us in stitches exclaiming “Homer you f***ing idiot” and many more expletives about Homer’s incompetence!

We eventually made it to the address of our parking space for the day. The kind owner of the house greeted us with a printed map of where we needed to go and also gave us verbal directions.

It was a much longer walk than we expected but we found the venue without too much trouble. We also discovered that there was a very reasonably priced car park very close to the studio! Hey Ho, I’d only paid £5 for our space so that’s ok. Although we would have to find our way back to the car at the end of the evening and we’d already realised that our navigation skills were, at best, questionable!

As predicted we had a very long wait, not just to get in but to find out if we would even get a ticket. Fortunately since then they have improved the system and they issue tickets on arrival so the audience members can leave and come back when they open the doors. Much better.

However, on this occasion, we had to wait to see how many tickets would be available. Before they allocate tickets to the public they have to see how many of the crew/production guests there are, as well as friends and relatives of the contestants.

We amused ourselves while we patiently waited to find out. The girls made banners and we chatted and did some ‘people watching’. Every time a car pulled up nearby, the crowd got excited and hopeful that a contestant or one of the judges might step out. Call us desperate but standing in a queue for several hours does that to you! We even got excited to see equipment in an area just the other side of a metal fence where we were standing that was labelled Olly Murs. It was just a drum kit but we were bored…..!

Eventually the doors were opened and we shuffled along with periods of time without moving. It was longwinded and agonising! We could finally see the door and one of the Applause Store employees started counting the queue. He stopped between our friends and us (we were behind) and ushered them forward. Talk about panic! It looked like they might get in without us! My friend said rather frantically “We’re not going in if you’re not!”. It was a nerve-wracking few minutes while they advised us that there might not be any spaces left. Then ironically they proceeded to let us and about 200 more people after us in! We could have done without that bit of drama!

We were ushered in and taken up to almost the back of the studio, quite high up. This was disappointing at first until we realised we were sitting right next to the ‘Xtra Factor’ booth where Olly Murs and Caroline Flack hung out! It turned out it was an amazing place to be sitting! Not only were there celebrities sitting just two rows in front of us, including the likes of Harry Hill and Radio DJ Edith Bowman, but Dermot O’Leary came and spoke to us before talking to the celebrities when the show went on air. We were definitely in the fun zone!

When we went to the ‘Ladies’ during one of the breaks we did a double-take as Adam Woodyatt aka ‘Ian Beale’ strolled past us on his way from the ‘Gents’! Yes, it turns out even soap stars need to pee!

The show started with a pre-recording of a performance from Olly Murs singing “Dance With Me Tonight” so that he could do his ‘Xtra’ presenting during the live show. It was a pretty good line-up that year with the ultimate winner being Little Mix so the show was very good.

More importantly though, it was a great distraction for us at a very sad time.

“Do what makes you happy, be with who makes you smile, laugh as much as you breathe, love as long as you live”

Life is short….