On this day, August 28th, 2016, was bound to be marked as one of the best days of my life. I had entered a lottery online through a website called 1iota. They give away free tickets for when available, to be in the crowd at TV’s shows and sometimes award shows and things like that. I’ve used that site plenty of times before to get tickets to Good Morning America and I got to see Ariana Grande live in Central Park. But anyways, the day finally came and I was super excited. Though I though we (me and my Dad’s girlfriend), didn’t get the best seats since on the tickets they said, obstructed view so I wasn’t getting my hopes up on getting the best seats in the arena.

We took the bus and the train and arrived at MSG around 5:10ish. Check in wasn’t until an hour and a half or so later, around 6:30 or so? I’m not really sure. Also, every one was dressed up really nice and fancy, like we were all going to the biggest party and we were all invited. It took us a while to actually check in and get our bags checked and things like that. Then they lead us towards where you usually enter to go to your seats through escalators but apparently we weren’t going to our seats yet. (If you been to Madison Square Garden before, you know what I’m talking about.)

About forty or so minutes of just standing (and mind you it was really hot on this day in NYC so it wasn’t really that cool where we were standing either.) Eventually we followed someone as they led our group of “obstructed view” ticket people and they lead us towards the Theater at MSG. I was really confused by this point and it was almost 7:00pm. The show started at 9 so they made us wait for two and a half hours there. Literally. We made some friends and we were also really tired from the heat.

The nice thing was, the people in charge of moving us around to different places, gave out free water which I thought was nice. It would have been better if the water was cold but you can’t have everything in life. I was just grateful we got water and thanked the people who passed them out. While we were waiting, pretty much was watching the live-streams of the red carpet and who was arriving and what everyone was wearing. We watched them on our phones through Facebook and MTV’s website. It was a lot of fun because soon enough we would be in a room filled with so many stars and I couldn’t be more excited.

By this point, I was getting tired and the show hasn’t even started yet. By 8:30, which is thirty minutes before the show started FYI, they were finally moving our group. We were one of the last ones to go and the PIT people and “seat fillers” went into the arena first and we were the last along with another group that was sitting on the other side of the theater. The theater was also really nice by the way. I never been in the theater itself before but the seats were extremely comfy, even though they were slightly tightly put together. There were also clear christmas lights hanging from the ceiling which made the theater look just as cool as it already was. And anywhere you sat was basically a good seat. So I would probably recommend going to a concert/show there even though me, myself, hasn’t been to one there yet haha. Below is a picture I took of the theater:

The funny thing was, I thought we were going to have the worst seats in the house. But I was starting to get confused when we stopped going up the escalators and were in the 100’s section. By this point I was getting really excited but I was trying not to get my hopes up. We stopped at section 104 and I was freaking out because I sat in section 101 before, which was only a few sections away and I wasn’t expecting us to have this good seats as well. We were both freaking out but then just as we were about to go into the section, they led us out of there because apparently there wasn’t enough room to fit us all in that section.

But then, we went to the section next door which was section 105 and my heart felt like it literally stopped. I think we were in the 5 or 6th row of the section? I’m still not too sure myself but I was just so excited to actually be in the same arena as so many of my favorite stars it was insane. Below is my was what my view looked like at the show:

When we sat down, music was blasting from a DJ that I couldn’t exactly tell where he was and on the screens at the top of the arena, there was a countdown, showing three minutes and thirty seconds until show was starting. Just the adrenaline and the vibe of the place was getting me all hyped up and excited especially because it was my first award show EVER. And I’ve always wanted to go to an award show so at least something on my bucket list is complete :).

We could see all the stars in the middle of the stage. There were two runways on either side of where the celebrities were sitting. By this point we were both fangirling over our favorite people that were there at the show. I saw Fifth Harmony (who are one of my favorite girl groups ever), Troye Sivan (who I love to death), Ariana Grande and her brother Frankie, Ansel Elgort… I couldn’t tell who else was there since there was so many and I was freaking out by this point so I wasn’t really in the right mind set to look for my faves. I was just so happy to be there. At one point, I shouted: (since the music was so loud) “THIS IS OBSTRUCTED?!” Like really, there was nothing obstructing our view besides the camera that was either panning the crowd or the stage which I didn’t mind at all since it was an award show after all.

We were also close to where the two guys were who were announcing the next acts and getting everyone excited for the show and talking about different celebrities that were at the show that night. When Rihanna was the first performer of the night and when she first came on, I was freaking out slightly. I never saw Rihanna live and I do like some of her songs so it was awesome, in my opinion.

It actually did feel like we were at our own Rihanna concert, since she performed many times throughout the night. Some parts of the night were somewhat a blur and if I knew they would’ve allowed cameras, I would’ve brought my digital camera to take better pictures. They originally said, while we were waiting in the theater, that there were no phones allowed. But when I had mine out and other people had theirs out as well, I guess it wasn’t really a big deal.

ALSO, get this. One of my favorite singers, Jake Miller, was sitting literally right behind me in the section next to me. I really wanted a picture with him but I didn’t want to bother him because it looked like he was having a good time and he looked so good in his blue blazer. I took this picture of him though but I didn’t want to seem like too in his face if you know what I mean.

 

The performance I was most excited for was Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj since I love Ari and she was performing her new song, Side By Side, for the first time. It honestly not one of her best performances since she was out of breath most of the performance since she was riding a stand in place bike or whatever they’re called but Nicki slayed her solo. I’m not a big fan of Nicki, but it was really cool to see her live. Below are some crappy pictures I took of the both of them during the performance:

Then a rapper named Future came on and performed. I don’t really know rap music that well but his performance was pretty cool to be apart of. At some point during the show, Kanye West spoke on stage and I was so happy they only gave him four minutes on stage. Of course being the idiot that he is, spoke about Taylor and pretty much shaded her right then and there. I really wasn’t trying to pay attention to is whole stupid speech thing (and sorry if I offend anyone. This is just my opinion and I actually really hate Kanye lol. Please don’t take anything I really say to heart because again, it’s only my opinions and thoughts.) But I did take a picture of Kanye, so here it is below:

Then shortly afterwards, he showed his new music video and then Beyonce came on stage. To be totally honest, I was slightly excited for Beyonce. I had never seen her live before and I’ve heard that she is an awesome performer. To be totally honest, she really is. On TV, it’s not the same experience for when you see it live during the actual award show. I loved watching her dance and her songs were pretty awesome too. My favorite song she was I Ain’t Sorry when she came towards the back end of the stage where I was sitting (and behind the crowd of celebrities) and it was really cool. She had sooo many dancers, my god. It was actually insane. Though, during one of Rihanna’s performances somewhere in the middle of the show, she probably had a lot more dancers than Beyonce. I couldn’t even see Rihanna through the crowd of people that were on stage with her, it was crazy. Here are some decentish pictures I took during Beyonce’s performance:

Beyonce performed for about fifteen minutes or so until Rihanna came back on stage. I got really hyped when she started singing part Bitch Better Have My Money and Work because those are some of the only newer songs that I knew of hers so those were pretty awesome to see live.

Then Fifth Harmony announced DNCE as the best new artist and I was shaky and excited when they came on stage (and was really sad to find out that they weren’t performing) but I was just happy to see them again (since I saw them on the 727 tour earlier that month.)

(Terrible… I know, right?)

Also during some part of the show, I found out that all the food they were serving was absolutely free! FREE! I’ve never had free food at a show before and if I had known earlier, I would’ve ate something instead of eating something before I left. Also, at some point, Britney Spears performed but I’m really remembering when she did exactly. I didn’t even get good pictures so I’m not going to bother posting them. Her performance was decent though, even though it was obvious that she was lip syncing though. And why did she need two microphones? I was so confused but it wasn’t a big deal so it didn’t really bother me.

Then Rihanna performed AGAIN! She sang a lot of songs that I actually did know and Drake gave her the Michael Jackson award or something like that which was pretty cool.

And of course Beyonce won an award, which wasn’t really surprising. I think it was for best music video? I’m not too sure. Jimmy Fallon presented her award and afterwards, as he was going back to wherever it was he was going, he waved at us!!! It was so cool! (Also before the show, Wiz Kalifa waved at us as well, it was so cool! As well as Ariana Grande! I was freaking out.)

Then the Chainsmokes and Halsey performed and I was really excited for Halsey. I wanted to see her live at her own show at MSG during the middle of that month but I didn’t get to go so I was happy to see her live, even though it was only for one song. The Chainsmokers though, I expected more from them but their singing was off and I didn’t quite like their performance as much as I did with Halsey’s even though they were singing together. It would’ve been better if Halsey was just singing by herself with the song but yeah, that’s what I thought of the performance. The confetti was one of my favorite parts cause there was so much of it and I wish I got to have some (since I always try to get confetti at the end of a concert/performance if I can get to reach it haha.) But here are pictures I took of it, it was so cool: (Sorry the pics are sideways, I saved them from my snapchat the day afterwards and never had the chance to change them back to normal.)

 

I was so sad when it was actually over (when it did end at 11:00pm) because I just wanted it to keep going even though I was extremely tired. It was definitely a great way to end my summer off because it was sooo much fun. If you ever have the chance to go to an award show, whatever type of music it is for, take it. Don’t ever say no because they are so much fun and usually expensive as hell if you don’t get to win free tickets like I did. Also Nick Jonas’s performance was outside, which is why I didn’t mention it during some part of my blog post but it was very good otherwise and I love Nick so much.

Have you ever been to an award show? Tell me in the comments below! Ask me any questions you’d like and I hope you enjoyed reading about my experience to my first VMA’s/award show as much as I did when I was actually there!

–Zoe