This is the current rebuild of my site, click to see the Old version (before you tell me I know that the url is new.letorey.co.uk that is because the ssl certificate works for this but not old).
Back in April it was announced that Florence + the Machine would play the Proms with a full orchestra, performing her first album Lungs. I immediately messaged my friend, Nyika, to confirm that she wanted to attend with me. We first saw Florence together at Glastonbury 2009.
18 May tickets went on sale. The Royal Albert Hall has a very fair and democratic way of selling tickets (until you don’t get one). On there site you are added to a waiting room with a unique ID then when the tickets finally go on sale everyone in the waiting room at the time is assigned a random place in the queue.
I was assigned positions 47k, 43k, 19k and 5k. The capacity of the venue is 5554 and customers could buy up to 4 tickets. Things did not look good and indeed this was true. The event sold out while my estimated wait time was still over an hour. Stubbornly I refused to give in and waited until I saw the words sold out for myself.
The Proms hold back a bunch of tickets for the day of the performance, this is called Promming. They have about 1000 tickets for Promming that are sold on the day of the concert for £8 plus booking fees. Usually these tickets are sold at the venue by queuing up, although due to the popularity of this show they were sold online. This time I was successful and secured 2 standing tickets for Nyika and myself.
The concert started with an introduction by Clara Amfo talking about who Florence + the Machine are, the album Lungs and the audience in the venue. Then Jules Buckley, who I have seen doing 2 other Proms with Public Service Broadcasting performing Race for Space for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and This New Noise for the 100th anniversary of the BBC, and a choir coming to the front. There was a subtle drum sound and then Florence came on stage and the arena erupted with cheers and the orchestra bust into action playing Drumming Song, it was at this point that tears of joy flooded from my eyes which didn't really stop for the whole concert.
The joy in the room was palpable and by the end I felt like I'd cried all the liquids out of my body and that the grin on my face would never go away.
Here in the UK we have the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and we pay an annual fee called the TV License to fund it. There are many people in our country that object to this. Although the BBC provide a service that is not just TV, it covers many things Radio, Website, Learning recourses for children and loads of other things.
Without the BBC concerts like the Proms would not happen, they also put on other events such as Radio One big weekend, Radio Two in the Park, that bring international artist to different cities around the country.
I can not express how important the BBC is to the UK and the world and if it were to be unfunded and go away I'd be devastated, can you even image listening to the Radio or watching TV with adverts and the owner pushing their own agenda???