Over the last few months, The 1975 have been teasing us with their cryptically worded ‘1st June – The 1975’ tweets. Like us, you were probably hoping that it wouldn’t be a repeat of last year, where the whole band disappeared of the face of the earth for a few days, before coming back completely reimaged. Despite the fact they could pull off any genre they attempted, we were all slightly relieved when this didn’t occur.
What did happen was rather amazing. The 1975 announced their first ever arena show – at London’s O2 arena – to take place on the 16th of December of this year. Fans were quick to react to the news, some delighted about how the band were branching out to reach wider audiences, others frightened by what this might bring for the band in the future.
However, Matty Healy, lovely as ever, was quick to reassure fans by sending out this quick tweet – ‘Selling out The O2 and what it represents is a scary idea for me and it must be the same for some fans. Just know that I know that. Love x’. Although Matty had previously stated that he never wanted to tour arenas, as he didn’t want fans to be that physically far from him, this announcement shows how Matty (and most likely the rest of the band) didn’t ever comprehend the level of fame they would reach. With an audience this large (and ever increasing), sometimes it’s beyond their control what venues they do and don’t play.
That said, the response to the news was astonishing. After a six-day countdown commencing on the 2nd of June, information regarding the arena show was posted across Twitter and Instagram on the 6th. Presale launched on Wednesday the 8th of June at 9AM, for those with O2 priority and individuals signed to The 1975’s mailing list. Due to such huge demand at the presale, manager Jamie Oborne got in contact with the venue and managed to get some more tickets added to the presale – which slightly defeats the idea of a ‘presale’ but still, wow!
Just two days later, general sales opened through various websites such as SeeTickets.com and theO2.co.uk. After tickets went on sale at 9am, just 3 hours later all 20,000 tickets had been snatched up. For a little band formed in Cheshire in 2002, who started playing in Matty’s mum’s garage, this is a huge feat.
If you didn’t manage to get tickets this time, it looks like you may have missed out for this show, unfortunately. As with any in-demand artist, there are many tickets being resold over the internet, if you are willing to pay more than the original £37.50 for them. However, Jamie Oborne is cracking down on tickets being resold over Twitter for such high prices, and also tweeted ‘Oh shit we just sold out the @TheO2 so humbled and don’t worry we are hearing you all re extra dates around country discussing now… Xx’. So, it’s likely there will be some more opportunities in the near-future to snag some tickets!
Did you get tickets or are you hoping to get some soon? Let us know over at @CelebMix on Twitter.