h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks!
I always try to catch the ISS (partly because the alerts come from a NASA email address!). There's a story to the Ed Sheeran concert that I was at, if anyone is interested: a story of 3 locations, the environment, political shenanigins and 85,000 people...

The coolest thing about seeing the ISS that night (Ed was a touch cooler) was that as I was looking up taking the photograph, another woman was doing the same. We shared a moment, then saw another woman, looking a bit harassed with 2 teenage girls and 2 younger boys (who were grumbling about having to wait for the girls who were in the queue to buy t-shirts). So we said: look up, that's a space station with people on it.
And their faces and the "wow" was worth it!

Wow, that *was* a cool moment! Thanks again for sharing the pic.

And are you kidding? YES, we want to hear this story about the shenanigans and the 85,000 people!

Are you sitting comfortably?
It began early last year, Ed Sheeran went on tour in Germany and the tickets sold out within minutes. The Gruesome Twosome were disappointed. So were thousands of others, especially as within minutes the tickets appeared at vastly inflated prices on reseller sites.

a few weeks later a tour was announced for 2018 - this time there were purchasing restrictions. A maximum of 4 per person, and they were to be personalised with the buyers' names, and entry to the gig would be with a combination of the ticket and photo ID. The concert was to be held at the disused airfield in Essen (about 70kms away from where I live)

The tickets went on sale, and because one of 's friends with a daughter the same age as the Gruesome Twosome wanted to go, we decided that she and I would both try to get 3 tickets. I would drive them to and from the gig.

And of course it was incredibly difficult to get tickets (complicated for me by it being the day I had to buy half a season's worth of football tickets at the same time). So anyway about 3 hours after they went on sale, the other lass called to say she'd been successful.
And suddenly it occurred to me that I should get a ticket too, since I like Ed and otherwise I'd have to hang around during the concert. So I got one.


That was July 2017. Concert date: 22nd July 2018. In around November it was decided, after a spate of them had been dug up, that there were potentially too many WW2 unexploded bombs all over the airfield, and having 85,000 people dancing on them might not be a good idea.


The organiser was looking around for a new venue, and we were all looking at the press for details. And in a few weeks it was decided that the concert would be moved to the car park area of the Düsseldorf trade fair grounds. To enable this, 100 trees would have to be cut down. The local government - a coalition of SDP (approximates to Labour) CDU (approximates to Conservatives) and the Green party held an urgent meeting to discuss it. The coalition of SDP and CDU decided the gig could go ahead and the trees would be felled. The Greens voted against.

And for ages that was the position. Until the CDU put the SDP noses out of joint, and so the SDP announced they would now side with the Greens and, by the way, they had changed their position on the trees. With around 2 months to go the concert was on the verge of being cancelled.


85,000 disgruntled ticket holders, many of whom were coming from far-flung corners of Germany and had booked travel and hotels, were disgruntled. It was tense, but with about 4 weeks to go it was announced that the concert would be moved to the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen - the ground of the football club Schalke. With the small catch: the capacity of the arena is a maximum of 45,000 people for a concert. So Ed Sheeran would play 2 dates: 22nd July and 23rd. The tickets already issued were declared invalid and the organiser allocated everyone to one of the two dates and sent out new tickets. Suddenly instead of being a massive standing only gig, it was a partially (allocated) seated affair.

Just my luck: the 3 girls were allocated standing tickets for the 23rd, I got a seat (in a really good place) for 22nd. I sent mine back for a refund (there was a very small window to do this) and spent the next 2 weeks becoming increasingly grumpy about the fact that the ticket agency kept emailing me with notices that there were tickets available for both days (all the other poor saps like me who sent their tickets back).

said "get a ticket for the 23rd and go then" so... I did. It was a seated one, so not near the Gruesomes and their friend, but not a bad place and at least I wouldn't have to hang around waiting for them.

So that was that. Plus, a bonus: unlike previous gigs we've been to in that arena we didn't spend 3 hours just getting out of the car park and I was back home by 1:30 am.

AND you got a fantastic photo of the ISS.

What a wild story! I can imagine the Green Party when they said they'd cut down 100 trees for a concert - 'Who do they think they are, Disaster Area?'

to be fair to Ed he said "can you believe they wanted to cut down 100 trees? madness"

Sounds like a level-headed guy.

I don't know him: got any good links?

this is him - at Gelsenkirchen.
If it's the day I was there - up in the top left you can see an entrance - I was slightly to the left of that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOdYI6cub3Q

it's the theme to one of the Hobbit films