On Sunday the 2nd of October, Kingston Upon Thames saw a wave of people joining a queue outside Banquet Records to get some tickets for pop rock band, The 1975. A fan of the band, discusses her experience in the queue.
It’s raining. It wasn’t forecast but then again, with British weather, it would rain while you’re queuing to get last-minute tickets for British band, the 1975. It’s 8:26, 33 mins until the doors to Kingston’s Banquet Records opens, and the chaos begins.
Previously a nightclub named Oceana, Pryzm is a venue which works alongside Banquet Records, and usually holds promotional shows for an artist’s latest music, close to, or after the release of a new album. The tickets: always affordable, the shows: always worth watching.
This week’s offering does not depart from this pattern either. A bargain at just £16(or £19.75 with a CD thrown in), to see The 1975, a pop rock band with four number one albums under their belt. First formed in 2002, the band were announced as performers on Thursday 29th of September. They have a huge cult following which made its way to Kingston on Sunday the 2nd of October to snatch some first- come- first- serve tickets, for a more intimate show the night before their fifth album comes out. To reiterate, the band are familiar playing arenas, with an extra date at the O2 being added due to massive demand. With Pryzm being a capacity of just below 2000, its safe to say that this will be a more intimate show.
Silvia Pellegrino, a journalist and a huge fan of this year’s Reading and Leeds headliners, has been in the queue for three hours, saying “we left at 3AM to get here” from central London. This kind of commitment may seem rare; however, it is becoming increasingly more common. At around two-hundredth in the queue, Pellegrino is still uncertain on whether she will secure tickets. Even arriving at four in the morning Is relatively late in comparison to the times people at the front of the line were arriving.
Pellegrino is from Italy but has been living in the UK for “four years”. The friend she is with today also coincidently was moving to the UK at the same time, four years ago. Pellegrino says, “we met through twitter in 2014”, and are still huge fans of the band. Sites like Twitter have become an increasingly more widespread way of creating friendships today, with online friendships growing due to a larger usage of social media since the pair became friends eight years ago. It provides a chance to find friends that share the same interests and have similar things in common.
In 2018, Pellegrino says she also “went to see them (the 1975) at Pryzm”, however she has only ever queued in a line “to see Sam Fender in 2019”. She says she “probably won’t queue on Thursday” which is understandable as Pellegrino adds that she has booked to see the band for” five dates” in January (when the UK leg of their tour beings).
It seems after the pandemic there is a huge demand for concert tickets and, local venues like Pryzm, provide a chance to satisfy this demand at an affordable price. Kingston saw this desire first hand on Sunday the 2nd of October and, even though it took six hours of waiting in uncertain weather conditions, there was still a sense of cheerful anticipation.
