Recently, while looking for One Direction tickets to their last show on the North American tour On The Road Again 2015 on Sept. 12, a friend came across very cheap floor seat tickets for $175 each. The were section B2, row 12.
For a One Direction concert, those prices for those seats were unimaginable, and it was a no-brainer to purchase them. The tickets were on Craigslist. My friend had contacted the guy who was selling them, and he was located in Boston. Another friend, who attends school in Boston, agreed to go meet the guy for the tickets at a local Starbucks, a typical Craigslist meet-up scenario. She went with some of her friends. She got the tickets, said they were legit. They were real tickets -- not even the paper-copied ones that you have to print out online nowadays.
This was going to be our second show of the tour. We had driven almost five hours to East Rutherford, New Jersey on Aug. 8 to see the boys at MetLife Stadium. We had planned to attend the Gillette Stadium show since the day the tour schedule came out. We were so happy to finally have gotten good tickets, for a very good price. We even made t-shirts that said "Nobody can drag us down."
On Sept. 12, my friends picked me up from school, and we were on our way to the show. Pre-concert emotions are the worst with One Direction. I think they make us more upset than happy. Or they make us so happy that we are upset. It is indescribable, really.
We arrived at Gillette after waiting approximately an hour in traffic, as usual. The problem with One Direction concerts is that it doesn't really hit you until they come out on stage. Then it's a very magical experience. As we walked to the gates, Augustana was performing "Boston" on stage. We walked towards the line and gave the lady our tickets. They declined. She said, "You need to go see the box office on the sides. We have been having problems all day." We all just looked at each other. We kind of had an idea of what was happening, but we never thought it would actually happen to us. We got in line, and two girls next two us said their tickets were declined too. We asked them where there seats were and they said "B2." We asked what row. The said "Row 12." we looked at each other's tickets. They were all the exact same. This man had been going around Boston selling the same tickets. Amongst us in the line were another group of girls. They also had the same tickets as us.
We were all infuriated. Tears were shed. Lots of tears. It's one of those things you hear about, but you never thought you would experience it. This man living in Boston had just made so much money off of selling counterfeit concert tickets to teenage girls at a One Direction concert.
All that was left to do was "talk with the police officer in the next line" and buy new tickets. We got new tickets. Section 301. Nosebleed seats. Back where we were for the show at MetLife Stadium. We waited in line to talk to the police officer, and all of the girls around us were dealing with the same problem. They bought tickets from the same guy, and they were the same seats.
He wasn't the brightest on the planet, clearly. He had met these people, some even had their parents go meet him, all in places with cameras. He had an iPhone that he was using to contact the buyers of the tickets. He actually answered his phone when one of the girls tried calling his number. There was music playing in the background and she was yelling at him saying, "How could you do this?" He responded with profanities. Not surprising. He's selling fake concert tickets and sexually harassing girls over the phone. The police officer said the only way there would be a chance of finding him and getting money back would be to file a police report in Boston; So that was helpless. Meanwhile, the concert was about to start and, unfortunately, it was hard to really focus on that because we were all too frazzled by what had just happened to so many of us. The only positive thing that came out of this whole fiasco is that we made some nice friends, and we were lucky enough to still be alive, although each of us were down $175.
Gillette Stadium had very little sympathy also. This one girl in an orange jacket with a real snotty attitude asked us where we had gotten out tickets. I didn't answer and she chimed in again with, "Craigslist?" We just looked at her and she said, "Well, that'll teach you not to be using concert tickets on Craigslist." Is that what you say to a bunch of young girls who realize that they have made a mistake and are currently processing what just went on? No. So thank you for the great advice, girl in the orange jacket. I couldn't have figured that one out myself. Also, shout out to Gillette Stadium for telling people tickets were sold to or not upgrading. You guys don't make enough money with the Patriots, I guess, even after their Super Bowl win last year, and the whole deflating footballs issue.
Some of the girls agreed to meet up and go place a police report in Boston sometime last week. I'd say over 50 people got scammed by this unintelligent, mindless human located in the Boston area.
All we can do now is take this and tell our future children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc. Let it be a lesson, and let us be thankful we still got to see the boys in concert.
Until 2017, One Direction.
