The CMA’s!

Last year after the CMA’s I heard from friends that anyone can stand outside the CMA’s red carpet and see stars as they walk in. I’m not a huge country fan, but I absolutely love Taylor Swift. I was bummed that I missed out last year, but I was determined to go this year. So Thursday night I headed downtown with my friend Daniel in hopes of seeing Tswift.

As we walked around Bridgestone Arena, where the event was taking place, everyone was dressed up for the awards show. We headed over to the entrance to the red carpet where all of the fans were. There were so many people that some people were standing on lawn chairs to see over the crowd. I couldn’t really see at first, but people with tickets to the show had to be inside by 6:30, so as they left I kept moving forward until I was only a couple of people away from the barricade! Vans with darkened windows would drive up, drop off the stars, and then they would say hi to the crowd and sign autographs if you were lucky. I saw so many celebrities! Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Shawn Johnson, Hayden Panettiere, Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean, Tim Allen, and at the very end, Taylor Swift! She was so sweet and went down the entire barricade taking pictures with fans, definitely spending the most time with the fans compared to everyone else. I wasn’t close enough to get a picture with her, but just being so close was awesome, and her dress was gorgeous.

TAYLOR SWIFT!!!

The CMA stage!

Right after Taylor went inside the red carpet, we ran over to the end of the red carpet which led to a door into Bridgestone in hopes of seeing her again. While still freaking out and talking about how close we got, a lady came up to us asking how many people we were with. It was just us two, and she pulled out tickets to the CMA’s that she gave to us! We were freaking out! I have always wanted to go an awards show and I finally got the chance!

We were still giddy as we walked in the door where they handed out official programs. It was a little awkward walking around in jeans and a sweatshirt when everyone else was wearing really fancy dresses. Our seats were amazing! We were really close to the stage, and I could see where Taylor and a bunch of other stars were sitting the whole night. In the first song, there was fire and we were so close that it felt hot! It was cool seeing the teleprompter and how they planned the show, using the entire arena. When they were on the air, things went really fast, and then there would be 5 minute commercial breaks where nothing was going on. The entire show was amazing, there were so many performances, and they did a lot of visually cool things, particularly with Little Big Town’s performance. Overall, it was unreal how amazing that night was.