Hey Guys,
So on Tuesday November, 10 2015, my friend, Chloe, and I were privileged enough to have VIP tickets to go and see YouTuber’s Dan and Phil on their UK tour stop in Basingstoke.
Now, both Chloe and I had been to another one of their shows in Cardiff as general admissions. We both enjoyed this so much and decided that we would like to go again. Previously, neither of us had been able to afford the VIP tickets but, due to having more preparation time to gather the funds for VIP, as the Basingstoke tour stop was added at a later date, we were able to afford them! Thus begins our adventure of meeting the two internet nerds that we both thoroughly enjoy laughing at.
Firstly, before I go into the story, I’m giving you a disclaimer that this does include a few show spoilers. However, I have stated and put in bold at the start of spoiler and then the end of it if you want to skip over that bit.
Chloe and I rushed onto the train station platform, reaching it just as our train pulled in. We found our seats and thus began our short journey to Basingstoke, where I would then meet my internet friend and YouTuber (link to their YouTube channel here. You should definitely check it out as she is awesome as heck), Emily, for the very first time!
Half an hour later, and we had arrived. We exited the station and walked over to wear Emily said she and, our other internet friend, Amy, were sat. We greeted each other and walked over to the venue (where we then met even more of our internet friends – I shall include their links below).
Once let through the doors, we were led upstairs to the VIP area where we were handed a red paper ribbon that we were told to tie around our wrist.
The room was directly above the venue’s foyer, which you could see down to over the glass bannisters. It was painted a dark red, with plenty of lighting. Straight ahead, I could see the board where Dan and Phil would later stand behind to do their Meet and Greet’s. As I went round the corner and further into the room, there was a table to my right, which held a book where VIP ticket holders could write a message for Dan and Phil. Obviously I used this as an opportunity to promote myself. As we went further into the room, there were more smaller tables which all held jugs of water and cups, along with little packets of Haribo. Dan and Phil had also created a playlist for the VIP area, which included songs from the likes of Ed Sheeran, Sia, 2NE1, Troye Sivan, Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Twenty One Pilots and many others. (If you are interested in seeing what else was on this playlist, one of the moderators from @updatedphan have created a playlist on Spotify that includes all the songs. You can listen to this here).
Chloe and I went and stood in the line to sign the book on the table, when a girl behind us suddenly said “oh my god, look” to her friend and pointed behind her. The whole mood in the room shifted and then Dan and Phil both walked in, smiling and waving (accidental Madagascar reference) at everyone. Most had suddenly rushed forward, desperate to take a photo and be noticed by the two dorky giants. Standing in front of the board, they both said “Hi guys, thanks for coming! We’re looking forward to meeting you all and are excited for you to see the show”. They then went behind the board and the Meet and Greet commenced. Everyone that had rushed to gather round Dan and Phil then rushed over to form a line, desperate to be as close to the front as possible. Chloe, and I signed the book and made our way, with Emily, to the back of the room to sit and wait for the line to go down.
*SHOW SPOILER* As Dan and Phil were doing their Meet and Greet, there were various members of staff taking people into a sound booth to record questions for Dan’s Internet Support Group segment of the show. Another staff member was walking around with a whiteboard frame for people to write their ‘Why I Was A Weird Kid’ lines for Phil’s segment of the show. There was also a man asking people if they wanted to submit Seven Second Challenge questions. *END OF SPOILER*. Another man also had a large, professional camera and was interviewing some VIP ticket holders (potentially for the film that there are currently rumours about).
We sat at the back until a lady who was a part of Dan and Phil’s management team came over and asked us to join the end of the line.
We went and stood in line. This was the moment that it hit me that I was actually about to meet Dan and Phil within the next 15 minutes or so. The line grew shorter as my nerves increased until suddenly, I was next in line. The security guard said “Are you ready? Three, Two, One… Go round now!”. I turned the corner and was instantly greeted by firstly Phil and then Dan’s smiling face.
Phil pulled me into a hug and said “Hi, how are you?”. I replied with “Helloooo, I’m good thanks, how are you?”. Dan then hugged me whilst saying “Hiiii!” and then in unison with Phil, “We are very good thank you.” Dan then said Hi to me again as I was apologising to Phil (I accidentally punched him when I hugged Dan, oops). Dan replied to me saying “No worries”, thinking I was apologising for hugging him as Phil laughed at Dan. Dan then asked if I wanted them to sign my poster and I said “Yes, please”. Phil then said “Let’s do it” in a deep voice, at the same time as Dan said “Of course we can” in a very bad American accent (I was offended by it and I’m not even American). Straight after he had realised he had spoken in a weird American accent, he pulled a slightly confused face and said “Ok….”. Phil said “That was very American, Dan” and Dan said “I know” and pulled a face that showed both of his dimples. As he did this, I said to Dan that his accent was very bad and he gave me a knowing look, smile laughed whilst saying “I’m not even sorry”.
At the same time as I had told Dan his accent was bad, Phil had mimicked Dan by saying “Of course we can” in a very exaggerated and incredibly bad American accent. Dan then asked “Do you want me to take a selfie for us? Everyone says I have obnoxiously long arms so” and I said “Yes, please”. Dan then got the camera up on my phone and was about to take the photo. I then paused him to tell him that Twitter had said that I had to kick him if he gave me a blurry photo. Phil laughed at this and said “Oh dear, you better be careful then, Dan!” whilst Dan said “Aw, I don’t think that would be good for the show”. I laughed at them both whilst internally cringing for actually telling him that and Dan continued to take the photo. As Dan was about to give my phone back, I asked if we could take a cringey photo too and Dan said “Yeah, of course we can.” at the same time as Phil said “Yeah, sure!”. Dan took the second photo and then I smiled at them both.
I then told them both that my internet friend, Magda, had asked me to tell them that she said hi. Dan replied saying “Tell her we both said hi back.” and Phil added “Yeah, and tell her we said thanks for watching our videos too”.
I then gave them both another hug and they both said thanks for coming and that they hoped I enjoyed the show. I thanked them back and said it was nice to meet them. Phil replied and said “It was nice for us to meet you too”. Dan looked at Phil and then at me and smiled before saying thank you again. Both Dan and Phil then said bye and I said “Thank you, bye”.
I then went round the other side of the board to join Chloe, who had been before me in line to meet them. A lady then cut off my red ribbon and handed me my VIP tote bag, which was all black. One side of it says ‘I actually went outside to see Dan and Phil on tour’ in white writing, surrounded by gold stars and the other side says ‘The Amazing Tour is Not on Fire’ in gold lettering. Inside, it had a tour poster, a black VIP festival style wristband, which says ‘The Amazing Tour is Not on Fire *VIP*’ on, a Penguin Platform postcard, a book called ‘Love Sick’ by Jessie Cave, a flower crown and finally, a snack of some sort. My bag included some chocolate buttons, however others included popcorn, snack size chocolate bars and such.
Emily then came out from meeting Dan and Phil. A couple seconds after this, Dan and Phil also came out and said “It was so nice to meet you all of you and we really hope you enjoy the show” before thanking us and saying goodbye. Chloe, Emily, Amy and I then made our way to the appropriate door for our seats and sat there until the doors opened and so my VIP experience comes to an end.
I’m not going to write about the show as one, Dan and Phil have requested that we not do this and two, I’m sure this is already long enough and you’re probably incredibly bored by now.
Thanks for reading!
Goodnight
P.S. Below are the attached links of all the awesome people that I got to meet that evening (you should definitely check them out as they are some of the nicest people I have ever met).
thatinternetaddict 