10 hours. That's how long I waited in line at the Spectrum Center box office in Charlotte, NC for just a chance to see Olivia Rodrigo. I had missed her last tour because the dates she had planned were the night before my AP language exam and on top of that she was performing in Georgia. Which was not an extremely long drive but to make it back and still sleep and wake up for an AP language exam just didn’t seem probable.
Anyway, my friends and I left our houses around 6:30 AM and we got in line around 8 AM. At first, it was calm as all the lines had been made from people who had been there from camping since the night before (even though the venue had stated that it was prohibited). But then all hell broke loose as people realized that they were lined up at the wrong box office because the Spectrum Center has TWO box offices.
So the line of about 100 people immediately and randomly got up and raced to the other box office. To say it was a mess and unorganized at this point would be…well that would be an accurate description actually. But anyway after what felt like an eternity, members of either Olivia’s team or people from the venue had come out to attempt to organize the mess of a line that had been created.
But our chances of getting tickets had increased as we befriended two girls who were there so early that they had numbers on their hands of where they were in line before the chaos ensued, who were so kind to let us slip in line with them. And just like that, we ended up with around 95-98 people in line.
That whole mess had happened within like two hours. Then we had the rest of the time to wait for tickets. It was 10 when we finally settled into a line. Most people at the front were letting people behind updates from the box office workers and at that time we were told that the box office would open at 1 PM. It didn’t. By the time 1 PM had rolled around, they had told us they didn’t know when the box office would open.
I took this time to go to a nearby hotel for a multitude of reasons but left with a large hot chocolate and a warm croissant. Fast forward to the peril we were in, even knowing if there were tickets left for us to buy, we got to the box office and snagged three tickets in the lower bowl for $205.
Right after we bought our tickets we hauled ourselves to the car we parked in a nearby parking garage to get ready and find something to eat. At this point, I was the only one to have eaten anything and all I had eaten was the croissant. So to say that we were hungry was an understatement. I didn’t end up eating until we got to the venue and got food from one of the Chick-fil-A stores inside the Spectrum Center. But ignoring that we got ready in the car with our purple attire and made our way to our seats.
We made it in time to hear the opener, Chappell Roan, perform her set. However, one of my friends went to get merch while she was performing so she had sadly missed the performance. But she started with Femininonmenon and performed songs from her debut album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.” She then proceeded to perform “After Midnight”, “Naked In Manhattan”, “Casual”, “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl”, “HOT TO GO!”, “Red Wine Supernova”, My Kink Is Karma”, and closed her set with “Pink Pony Club”. I knew most of the set except for “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl.” The set was filled with energy the entire time and she was exceptional.
Then the main show happened. Olivia had a timer go on the screen in the form of candles melting to announce when she would step on stage.
Graphic photo taken from: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1McMsnEElThX1knmY4oliG