When you have upwards of 2,000 people queued up inside — and outside — of Virgin Megastore at Mall of Emirates to buy One Direction tickets, you expect pandemonium. Screaming, shoving and sobbing would be standard fare for the opening sale that began at 6am — but not for this polite lot.
Parents and fans stood in an orderly line that twisted around the length of the mall’s ground floor to buy tickets to the April 4, 2015 1D concert at Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens stadium. Despite cheering loudly when prompted to, the crowd was mostly quiet, content to chat among themselves and buzz in their spots.
But don’t mistake this for a lack of enthusiasm. The dedication was remarkable, as proven by the first two gals in line, 15-year-old Dari De Anda and Hannah Edmondson, who had been waiting for over 12 hours.
“We’ve been here since 4.30pm yesterday,” said De Anda.
“We just wanna make sure we get tickets,” added Edmondson, who was barefoot with a pillow in tow, all for a chance to see Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Harry Styles and Liam Payne live.
De Anda’s mother, Karla, said being the parent of a Directioner — that is, a 1D fan — is sometimes ‘unreal’, and her father added that they occasionally need a break from it all. But both of them were all grins, more than happy to indulge their daughter with eight diamond tickets (Dh1,000 each) for her and her friends.
A few spots down the line were Zenaa Al Farouki and Widad Al Farouki, both 17, who had flown in with their mother from Saudi Arabia just to buy tickets; they planned to catch a flight back to KSA the next day. The girls went to London in August and camped out at Piccadilly Square for the premiere of 1D’s documentary, This Is Us, earning them a wave from their idols.
“We just want to actually see them live,” said Zenaa.
Natasha Virmani, 15, said she spent the night in the car park with family. After a brief snooze, she joined the queue at 3am.
“It was already almost full,” she added regretfully. “Zayn is my favourite. I love his voice and his looks.”
Further down the line, 23-year-old Samantha Lockie, a university graduate, hesitated to share her age, but insisted she was nothing but proud to be a fan of the boys since their 2010 X Factor days.
“I dragged my two friends here with me and they’re not even fans. They probably hate me,” she said. She planned to buy four platinum tickets, priced at Dh500 each. “I haven’t slept yet. We’ve been here since 4.30am. I kind of regret that — I wish we came earlier.”
15-year-old Alia Al Shamsi was there with her three friends, Jiya Narendra Chulani, 14, Victoria Duczek, 14, and Natalia Sloniec, 12. In their school uniforms, they shrieked, posed and jumped for the cameras that passed by, declaring their love for One Direction. Al Shamsi was the quietest of them.
“It’s personal,” she said of why she loves the band, waving off her friends’ shouts about it having to do with good looks. She has a clever plan for if she meets her favourite, Tomlinson: “I’d get my Sharpie and write my Twitter name on his hand.”
Duczek, however, didn’t think she would get that far. “I would stop breathing!”
Though they were the majority, it wasn’t all young girls — or parents of young girls — in the crowd. The occasional boy was spotted, including Reza Alan, 16, who had his English GCSE final in two hours.
“I’m a Directioner,” he said, adding that he was sometimes compared to his favourite member, Malik. “It’s weird saying this, because I’m a boy, but I can relate to them.”
By 9am, the queue was short enough to be contained within the store. In Abu Dhabi and in Doha, Qatar, tickets were also being sold in person ahead of online sales, which opened at 10am. At the time of writing, Thomas Oveson, COO of concert promoters Done Events, told us almost half of the 33,000 capacity venue had already sold out.
“We’ve just gone beyond 15,000,” said Oveson in a phone call at 11.20am. “That’s roughly three times what we sold for Justin Bieber in one day. I would assume we’re gonna end up with about 20,000 tickets by the end of today.”
*Tickets to the Dubai concert will range between Dh250 and Dh1,000 available through virginmegastore.me.
