So this experience was just pure luck. A few weeks before your concert, you can enter for a free meet and greet on Lady Antebellum’s website as long as you had a paid account, which I did. I’ve loved Lady A for at least four or five years now and to have the opportunity to finally meet them was amazing. (I had also seen them in 2014 as well so this was my second time seeing them.) Then a few days before the concert, I get an email saying “Congratulations! You won a Lady Antebellum meet and greet!”

And that’s when the freaking out started happening. It was an amazing moment because I would have never thought I could win. So we get to the venue (Jones Beach’s venue in Long  Island). It was a little bit of a hassle to get the meet and greet at first, since the person in charge of that was really lazy and wouldn’t look through the files and said that my name wasn’t there. But of course it was and he just wasn’t looking hard enough.

If you haven’t been to Jones Beach’s theatre before, it’s a little hard to explain where they led us. But the theatre is surrounded by a body of water and we walked in between seats and a barricade blocking the water and walked us backstage where a few others were lined up as well. They gave us orange meet and greet wristbands. Backstage at that venue was sooo cool. There were a bunch of tables and chairs for the artist and the artist tour crew and they even had their own private buffet and everything. Of course we couldn’t access it but I really wanted to (haha). Soon enough, I look into the distance I see very tall people walking this way and then I say to my Mom “That looks a lot like Charles and Dave.” and it was! Then I could see Hillary come into view and I was just really excited that they were right there in front of me.

Charles though… oh my god he was so freaking tall. He has to be about six foot because he towered over every one. Hillary was three feet taller than me and two feet taller than my Mom especially cause she was wearing heels. Dave said after I hugged them all, “Hey! Nice shirt.”, pointing to my Lady A shirt I had gotten at the concert last year. I said thanks and I don’t really remember much of what was said (I do somewhat remember Hillary saying “Hey yall!” in the cutest accent ever) but I did tell them I was going to be in the Pit area by the stage and Charles said “We’ll look for you there!”

We then went towards the pit area and we were behind two girls at the end of the runway. The openers for Lady A were Hunter Hayes (who I love to death) and new country artist, Sam Hunt. Sam Hunt was pretty impressive and I did know some of his songs. Hunter was on after Sam and was getting everyone excited for Lady A. He pretty much sang all of my favorite songs of his and it was basically my first Hunter concert (I’ve always wanted to see Hunter live.) Before Lady A though, the girl who was standing in front of me, made sure to give me her spot since she only wanted to see Hunter and Sam’s performances, which I was really grateful for.

When Lady Antebellum came on… they were so much better and more amazing than the first time I saw them. They did sing a lot of old songs, which I liked. But I really did want to hear new songs. But during the concert, each of them found me at the end of the runway. Dave gave me one of his guitar pics during Freestyle, Charles grabbed my hand as well as Dave and Hillary waved at me during one of the songs. It was incredible. They were so sweet and I definitely can’t wait to see them again soon. (I also might even be seeing them for my birthday this year in New Jersey.)

–Zoe 🙂