Future Groom... PQUIN
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I found the perfect proposal!
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« on: March 29, 2008, 02:24:35 PM » |
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March 28th 2008 - Finally the "BIG" planned day. We flew the company airplane up to Orlando for the weekend. My plans were to get us backstage with Avenenged Sevenfold (A7X) at the Taste of Chaos concert 2008 months prior to this I started speaking with the management company of the band and I was told to head to will call and the VIP tickets would be waiting for me. We made it to the concert venue by 4:30PM, and to my surprise will call had nothing waiting for us. I called Ashley the VP of marketing for A7X and she started making phone calls to see what the confusion was all about. Unfortunately she was having trouble reaching, Jim the tour manager, due to cell phone coverage and our evening was off to a sarcastically great start. We waited out front for 30 minutes while Ashley tried to call the venue and see if anyone can get her in touch with Jim, she kept getting put through to voicemail by the venue thinking she was a crazy fan, I continued to sit and stress. Laura and I decide to head around the building to the press entrance and see if we can help Ashley help us by finding Jim and giving him her message about not being able to reach him. We talked to a few security guards and 15 minutes later we were talking to Jim. Luckily I decided to print out some emails before we left just so I had some proof of the correspondence between myself and the management company. I handed the emails to Jim hoping to spark his memory or have a reason to ask the band if they had agreed to this like the emails stated. He left with the printed emails and went in the venue to figure it all out. Another 10 minutes later Jim arrives with 2 "Guest" braclets in hand, tells me to go through the front of the venue and meet him on the side of the stage. Now I'm wondering: Which side? When? How long do I wait? I started to ask him a few questions and he just shrugged me off like I'm supposed to know what to do. So we're happy we are getting somewhere but still very confused as to what to do. I understand there are all kinds of crazy fans out there but in our situation and with the communication prior I thought this would be taken a little more seriously than it was. I mean as far as they knew I was going to propose in front of the band?
I mentioned once to the management that I wanted to propose at the show, either before, during or after the show but I wanted Matt (M.Shadows), the lead singer of A7X to be present and months ago he said via email, through his managment company that, and I quote, "He is down." I didn't know if that meant he was down with me doing it before, during or after the show. Knowing that A7X isn't a Richard Marx, Brian Adams or Mariah Carey type of concert I figured during the concert would be a little out of the question, unless I did it while biting the head off a bat like Ozzy Osbourne or something similiar I would be sure to get boo'ed off stage. I was guessing Matt was approving a pre show meeting and a quick proposal in their dressing room backstage or hanging in the bus for 10 minutes and doing it there.
Back to the concert. We head around front with our "Guest" wrist bands and normal person tickets feeling like we are getting somewhere but still very confused. Once in the venue we grab a few beers and head to the side of the stage. After a few hours of not seeing Jim anywhere I decide to start asking around. We head to guest services and are escorted on the floor then to a backstage door where someone went looking for Jim for us. When they came back they told us to just wait around and he would get back to us when he rounded up the band. I guess as a tour manager you never know where the band might be. Since this concert was in Orlando maybe they went to Disney for the day and just never made it back yet? I know that sounds rediculous but that is how this guy made it seem, like he had no clue where anyone was and once he figured it out he'd call me.
Another few hours pass and there is less than 2 hours to go before A7X is going to perform. Now I'm getting a bit aggrevated that we haven't had the 5 minutes with them like I was expecting. We head back to the floor to the same backstage door as before, we find the same woman that went looking for us last time, but instead of sitting tight I decide to follow her in. I grab Lauras hand and start walking behind Michelle like I knew where I was going and went right passed security. We end up in front of Jim's door and again he tells me to wait here while he figures out what is going on. If I was the Tour Manager I would know where everyone is at and who is scheduled to see them or I would delegate someone else to deal with the meet and greets while I dealt with the concert planning etc. So we wait around the backstage hallway feeling like red headed step children for about 30 minutes. Jim finally has us follow him to the back room where there was a scheduled meet and greet with the band. We walk in and there are 30-40 people also waiting to meet the band. If this was a scheduled meet and greet why weren't we told that at 9:43PM we could expect to meet them at the meet and greet? Instead we wait around wondering the whole time if and when this is going to happen. Then we meet Jen....
Oh good ole' Jen the wondergirl of a woman. I'm not sure if she works with the band, or the tour, or the venue (I'd like to find out!) but I overhear that Matt would not be at the greet but the other members would be. I pull out my printed emails and explain my situation to her hoping to setup a time with Matt and talk to the guy for just a few minutes. She takes the emails to the bands bodyguard and tells me to sit back after this meet and greet and she'd figure out how to meet Matt and let me know. We meet the rest of the members, get our photo, a few things signed and get congrats about the engagement. Jen comes back to us and tells us to wait by the Bank of America ATM after the concert and she would come get us and bring us backstage after the concert is over................................... notice the amount of periods.....
So now we've waited around long enough to miss two of the three bands we wanted to see and are back in the audience about to watch the final band, A7X! The venue had too much echo so it was difficult to hear them but still worth the wait. Concert is over...
Time to meet Matt like Wondergirl Jen had promised. We wait.... and wait.... after 45 minutes of waiting AFTER the concert is over we leave the venue and head back to the press entrance to see if we can find anyone we met throughout the day that can help us. The first person I see standing next to a tour bus drinking a beer with two guys is Wonderbitch (WB). This woman promised us she'd come get us as soon as the concert ended and when she told me this stuff I felt like she understood the importance of one's engagement day, but obiously left us out front hoping to never see us again. This WB had the nerve to tell us she tried to come get us but was unable to get to that side of the building yet she stands just 100 yards from the front entrance, hanging out, drinking. WB puts on her fake smile and tells us she's going backstage to find out what the deal is. Instead of taking us with her backstage, note the "guest" braclets, she takes her two guy friends and tells us to "wait right here". We've both had enough of waiting around... If anyone is really going to help they would escort us with them.
Just a minute or two later Matt walks out for a quick photo and autograph session near the Tour bus, finally we might be able to talk to the guy. He does his thing, greets his fans while we wait quietly on the side of the mob of people. What was nice about this whole thing was we did get around the barricades from all the other fans thanks to a security guy who understood what the day meant to Laura and I. Matt was able to talk to us a little about our engagement and remembered agreeing to allow me to do it with the band present months ago and wondered why we weren't taken care of. Then he asked Laura if she was happy and he told us how nervous he was when he asked his girlfriend of almost 12 years to marry him. He signed our tickets with "congrats" on it, We both took a photo with him. After all the waiting and bull""POOP"" this day went into I'm just so glad I didn't wait to propose like I had planned because it would have been ruined and I would have been stressed to the max.
All I thought I was getting was 10 minutes alone with the band, have a beer, let Laura talk about her love of music with them. I know she wanted to ask things like: How they started out, what made the change from this album to the last, etc... Instead we were thrown in with the dogs. Would World Audience ever hook us up in the future the next time they are touring in Florida? Next time get the one-on-one like we thought we were getting this time? Or do you think I might be crazy for thinking that?
Thanks to: The few security members that understood what was going on for Laura's big day, Ashley the VP of Marketing from World Audience for really trying to do what she could from California but unfortunately was having problems getting in contact with the right people due to cell phone coverage at the Venue, and finally after meeting members of Avenged Sevenfold it seemed like they actually do care about their fans with numerous congrats from the band members and especially the front man Matt (M. Shadows) who spoke to us in person and shared his own personal story about of the anxiety that goes along with making the commitment to the one you love. So in the end, even going through all the managers and false promises we finally met the band through our own persistence and the band was as humble as we thought, maybe even more so. Although Laura wanted a crazy night of heavy metal fun it turned out to be a very memorable experience because she actually got to connect with her favorite band as opposed to her numerous experiences of concerts.
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