I Traveled 1,700 Miles to Watch Taylor Swift's Greatest Hits Concert With Internet Strangers
I was following someone named Maranda, whom I had known for 13 minutes, up a dirt path. Her bottle blonde highlights were straightened and tucked away from her face in a tiny braid, and she was clutching a plastic cup with some sort of beige-y frozen concoction sloshing up the sides. It was nearly 80 degrees, so I grasped a can of ZiegenBock with equal zest as we maneuvered our way around racing fans toward Turn 9 of Austin's Circuit of the Americas racetrack, where we were told to enter for Taylor Swift's headlining set that Saturday night. I didn't know anything about Maranda and her small herd of followers except that we all had pink wristbands. And pink wristbands stick together.
My skin grew a subtle shade of red, layers of dust coated my sandaled feet and my lips were burnt and crusty. I feared what would come out of my nose if I somehow got my hands on a tissue. But these are the kinds of things Taylor Swift fans face at concerts, where they often line up 12 hours in advance.
In fact, this whole mission started months earlier, when Swift first announced that she'd be headlining the Formula 1 Grand Prix. My internet friend Spencer (whom I met while writing about Swift's 2014 Secret Sessions, which he attended) tweeted out a tasty proposition:
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