When I tell y’all that my purchase on Ticketmaster went through at 9:25 p.m!!!!! I sprinted into the stadium just to see Beyoncé start singing at 9:29 p.m. I got it. I made a very last-minute decision to go see Beyoncé. When I first learned of the album Renaissance, I immediately thought here goes another artist taking capitalistic advantage of the popularity of being queer in this day so I refused to listen. After I learned that Renaissance was, indeed, dedicated to Beyoncé’s Uncle Johnny I had a change of heart and finally listened to it this year in its entirety and, of course, it’s a work of art.

 I went back and forth about purchasing a ticket for some time because I really wasn’t fully committed to the idea of attending the show, but on Friday July 28th, I felt moved to put together an outfit. I learned from the TikTok gworlies that press seats get released to the general public on the evening of the show and I decided I was going to give it a try. I was in the mood for an adventure, and I was not going to pay those resale prices. On Sunday July 30th around 1:00 p.m. I started vigorously refreshing the Ticketmaster website looking for standard admission seats being dropped. The options started to roll in at around 6:00 p.m. The first few times that I tried to snag a seat, the app stalled I then got an error message saying, “another fan beat you to this ticket,” so I kept trying. I had a few more experiences like that before my brothers encouraged me to say, “well screw it let me just make my way over to the MetLife stadium and I’ll just keep trying to get a ticket along the route or even while I’m just standing outside the stadium.” 

I make my voyage to Port authority fand for the first time I took the New Jersey Transit bus to the middle of nowhere. I treated it like a charter bus situation instead of a route with multiple stops. The bus was at capacity and I had to stand for the commute. I glanced to the right of me to see two other last minute concert goers who are trying to achieve the same thing. Shout out to Miguel and Leo who kindly offered to split an Uber to me so that we could get to the stadium together. We all had couple more instances of fans beating us to the cart and this was when I started to lose hope. The official start time was 7pm and I knew that I had a cushion of time until about 8:30pm. In this moment, it was a little after 9:00pm and, unexpectedly, I saw Ticketmaster shut down the purchasing platform. I got feedback stating that because the show had started sale and resale was complete and I felt defeated. 

I was in this amazing all denim ensemble and I felt the energy. I felt that this was an experience that was meant for me. I ran all the way over to the box office to see if the last-minute tickets were *maybe* available through them. The teller said no and that they hadn’t had tickets for months. That was my last effort. I even texted my line sister saying “yeah girl, they shut down the purchasing platform. I’m not going to be able to get in.” Then a few feet over, I see this crew of white girls screaming and running to security to enter. I thought, “how is this possible?” But something told me to just exit the app and get into the purchasing queue one more time…

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By some stroke of luck, a FLOOR SEAT appeared. Section 3 row 13 seat 7. $400. I added it to cart and waited for the buffer screen to redirect me to payment. I made it to the PayPal screen, I put in my information and at 9:25 p.m. I secured my floor seat to see Mrs. Carter. I sprinted into that stadium, made it to my seat by 9:28 and Beyoncé started singing at 9:29 p.m. It was the rush of my life. I made friends at the show and we all had a blast together. I learned that the individual who was sitting next to me, Khaleili, had also just purchased their ticket within the hour. 

We were gagged the entire time. I absolutely lost my mind looking at all these dancers that I have followed on Instagram and YouTube over all these years. They were recruited to dance and choreograph for the tour. I saw Aaliyah Janelle. I saw Carlos. I saw Amari. I saw Darius. I saw Honey Balenciaga… Ma’am. Jaw to the floor when she spun and dropped to the floor. They sacrificed their kneessss for US. I was breathing the same air as all these performed I admired.  I was sharing this positively welcoming space with people of all different aesthetics and backgrounds and the vibes were immaculate. Hearing Kevin Jz Prodigy’s voice over the speaker saying, “pussy tuna cunt …  cunt to the feminineeeee what?!” Literally just dying over and over and over and then coming back to life again.

 It was a hell of a show and it ended, I just kind of sat around in the stadium for a bit to soak in the fruits of my labor. I thanked myself for taking a leap and not giving up because I believed I was supposed to be in that space. I went wandering off trying to figure out how I was going to get back home from East Rutherford, New Jersey at 1am. I wandered over to where I thought the Port Authority-bound buses were and just so happened to stumble upon the tour buses where I saw all of the dancers who I named earlier. I stood there in awe as they were in their normal garb again, blonde wigs off, just walking around, stretching out and getting their post-show meals in. What a night. 10/10 recommend and I would absolutely do it all again. 

Until next time, 

Stef