Happy Tuesday Everyone! And welcome back to The Twelve Days of Blogmas, for Day Three I'm going to tell you all about my super amazing experience at the Jingle Bell Ball! I love my blog for all the beauty reviews, fashion posts and food diaries, but one of the main reasons I love my blog is because of the 'Diary' type posts that I can write! I love looking back at my blog to see all of the amazing experiences I've had, and this one is no different! This is going to be a long one so grab yourself a drink and make yourself comfy!
Myself and Tara spoke about going to the ball when they first announced the line-up on Capital, we knew it was something we would enjoy and so when the day came around to buying tickets we were glued to our phones! Turned out the screen I waited about an hour to load resulted in the tickets we wanted being sold out! Looking at websites like ticket master we noticed that the prices had completely shot up! And so we decided to sleep on it before we made a decision on what tickets to go for ... that night I did a bit of research and noticed that the O2 offers a more deluxe service in the form of 'The Deck'. I know it seems a bit odd but these tickets were cheaper than those being sold on any other website and so we decided to book these straight away! We also decided to book a hotel not too far away from the O2 so that we could make a weekend of it ... now without going into too much detail there was a bit of drama surrounding the initial hotel we had booked ... #ThankYouBookingDotCom! Anyway we ended up staying at the Holiday Inn express and I have to say it was perfect for the short stay we had! Tara drove us up on the Saturday morning and it was a drive of pure Car-Aoke! We listened to a lot of playlists and went back in time through the years! All the way back to Holly Valance ... Kiss Kiss! It's safe to say Tara did not enjoy those few minutes haha! But we did both rekindle our love for Sam Sparro, Black and Gold! #Tune! Once we got to the hotel we quickly had a bite to eat and started to get ready! The doors were opening at 4.30 and so we decided to leave at 3.30 to make sure we had enough time to get down and find our way!
The journey down to the O2 was nice and quick ... although Tara might disagree with that statement, haha! She did not like the tube ... I thought it would be quite busy but I think we may have missed the rush, thankfully! Once we got North Greenwich we walked down to the O2, now this year Coca-Cola sponsored the Jingle Bell Ball ... and right outside the venue was the Coca-Cola truck! I felt so Christmassy, I've never seen the truck before but it was amazing ... I thought it might have been a bit bigger but even so! To see it in real life was such a fab experience! After a few selfies and snapchats we made our way into the O2. As soon as we entered we got into a queue to sing Lady Gaga's Bad Romance before Tara made a bee line for the merchandise stand where she picked the both of us up some flashing Minnie mouse ears ... of course! I then realised the queue I was in was full of children and decided to leave the queue ... I mean I didn't want to show the kids up with my amazing Gaga impression, so it was definitely for the best haha! Instead we decided to join the queue for the ball!
Once we got through the doors we headed up towards our seats, we did however make a cheeky detour to the O2 Blueroom! We were there a little early so we decided to have a few cocktails and a little seat boogie to get ourselves pumped up for the show! Before we knew it, it was time to head to our seats ... as I said earlier we had seats on 'The Deck' and I have to say if I was ever to go back to the O2 for a show I would definitely get tickets for 'The Deck' again. It's set up like a bar with a glass ledge and some comfy seats ... although it's a nightmare to get out of them, because according to the O2 we're all the size of a cotton bud! Okay, I may be slightly exaggerating but still it was a small gap, haha! Once we were seated we were greeted by our very own waitress, Mariah! She was fantastic, she was so much fun and tolerant haha ... well she did have the drunk versions of myself and Tara to deal with haha! We were sat next to two lovely girls, Maisie and Logan! Together the four of us spent the whole night 'singing' and snap chatting away ... p.s. if any of you follow me on Snapchat I would like to offer a small apology for all of the shout singing haha!
The show started off with a little DJ set by Marvin Humes before Sigala made an appearance to really get things going! They had a really good set with a snippet of 'All I want for Christmas' to get us all in the Christmas spirit ... although it got a little awkward later on in their slot when Imani Williams asked how 'Wembley' was doing #Awks! Next came Olly Murs, who was bloody amazing! I've always wanted to see Olly live and I have to say he really went for it, I loved every second of his set! His voice sounded on point and his dance moves did not let me down! We then had Callum Scott who performed 'Dancing On My Own' ... not one of my favourite songs but he does have a beautiful voice! Someone who I was really excited to see perform was Dua Lipa ... and she did not disappoint! I think this was one of the first performances where we decided to get out of our seats ... or maybe that was Olly? Anyway, she got me dancing which was my point haha! As well as her own singles she also did a cover version of One Dance ... her voice, omg! She was then joined on stage by Sean Paul for their new song together, Don't lie ... and I wont lie, this was definitely one of the highlights of my night! Sean Paul then had a slot ... I can't believe I'm about to say this but I was a bit disappointed? He performed 'Cheap Thrills but really he could have done so much more in my opinion. However things quickly got back on track when Clean Bandit got on stage ... I love Clean Bandit, they're such an amazing group. They performed all of their hits including Rather Be, Real Love, So Good with Louisa gracing the stage and then the big one ... Rockabye! One of the main reasons I love that song so much is down to Anne-Marie! Much like Dua Lipa her voice has such a beautiful raspy tone, I'm so excited that she's making her mark and I was even more excited when she performed Alarm! Next up was Nathan Sykes, who really impressed me! The boy can SING! At the end of his set he did a little fist pump in celebration, which honestly is one of the cutest things I have ever seen!
Louisa Johnson was next, she performed So Good and it was ... pardon the pun, SO GOOD! She also did an acoustic cover of Love Yourself which got everyone lighting up the room with their torches! It was amazing! The next performer completely blew it out of the water for me, a massive highlight of the night ... Craig David! He was so good that Mariah decided to take a break from serving us vodka's to getting down with a good old dance with us! It was absolutely fantastic! Another one with an amazing voice, he had so much stage presence and really got the entire Arena singing and dancing! Once Craig had left the stage it was time to bring on all of the sass, in the form of Little Mix! I mean they were carried through the crowd onto the stage! The reaction they got was insane and their harmonies ... oh my god! #YAAS! The final act of the night was Calvin Harris! He turned the entire arena into one big rave ... even the granny next to us was feeling it! And this is someone who kept giving me evils when I was screaming with excitement ... and yes, I did scream louder because of it haha! His set was absolutely mental and one of the things that I loved the most was the lights! I know that sounds a bit silly but I love it when a performer thinks about all of the aspects when they're on stage! Before we knew it, it was the end of the night ... where the time went I had no idea! But like they say time flies when you're having fun and oh, did we have an amazing night!
I am so glad that we managed to go in the end and even more so that I got to spend it with Tara! I really hope that we can make it a little tradition of ours! Did any of you guys go to the ball? If so which day? Who was your fave! I'd love to hear all about it! Leave a comment below or get in touch via twitter or Instagram ... cheeky links are in the top bar under the banner! Hope you guys have a lovely day or evening depending on when you're reading this! And I'll see you on Thursday for another very exciting post for Blogmas, Day Four!
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