So, on Saturday the 28th of October, I attended Hello World in Birmingham at the Genting Arena and it, honestly, was one of the BEST days of my whole entire life. I had the most fun whilst I was there and I wanted to share my experience here, mostly so I could look back on this post whenever I wanted to and reminisce, as well as share my photos and let you all in on the excitement with me. Before I begin, I just want to address something very quickly, I know that there were a lot of complaints received by people who attended the event about the lack of opportunity there was to meet the creators, but I did not agree with this. The event itself was never intended to be a meet and greet, and it would have been very dangerous for the creators to be wandering around the arena as people would have been following them and there would constantly be massive crowds of people following them and this would have become very unsafe, very quickly, both for the creators as well as those attending the event. It was a completely new experience for all of those involved as nothing like this had ever been done before - it was inevitable that not everything would go smoothly but they seemed to learn from this quickly and ensured there was better organisation for Sunday. However, I obviously can only speak from my personal experiences, and I had a wonderful time and I thoroughly enjoyed my day.
When I first arrived, there was already a massive queue to get into the arena and I had arrived, pretty much, dead on 1pm. Once inside the arena, I was given my wristband and the Hello World newspaper and then myself and my Mum proceeded to the merch stand. By the time we got to the stand, they said they had already sold out of the hoodies three times that day, which was very gutting, but I came away with a t-shirt and I was just happy to have bought something - it just proved how popular it truly was. Walking into the arena itself was crazy because it was so different to just walking in to an empty arena with a stage ready for a concert. It was very overwhelming if I'm honest because there was so much going on, you just didn't know where to head first. Throughout my day, I watched Marcus, Joe and Oli on the arcade stage, as well as Josh, Jack and Jake later on, I saw Jim and Zoë in the bakery, I watched Oli in the school with James, I watched Alfie and Caspar in the school and I managed to spot Louise, and friends, making slime in the school from where I was stood waiting for the live show.
The live show was honestly incredible - I had attended Amity Fest back in 2014 and the show that they put on there was amazing, but Hello World brought it out of the bag. There were so many intricate aspects and details that went into putting on the Hello World live show and the hard work was definitely evident. From the spectacular entrance onto the main stage, to the introductory videos for each creator and the set designs for the revolving stage (not forgetting the slime station as well). Honestly, the show was magnificent and the different segments were great and added so much more life to the show, rather than it just being the same people on the stage at one given time. A personal highlight from the show would definitely have to be Marcus and Louise's rendition of "I'd Do Anything" - it was so good and very funny. The Vamps ended the show in true style and it was such a wonderful ending to the most wonderful day having all of the creators come out onto the stage and dance and sing to Up All Night (one of my favourite songs by The Vamps, might I just add).
Although I was not fortunate enough to meet any of the creators at Hello World, I did get to meet one of my favourite people - my internet friend Saira. It was YouTube that brought us together, because without that, our twitter accounts would not exist and we would not have began speaking to each other, so to meet her at such an incredible YouTube event was the most fun ever. I properly met her at the end of the night, after the show had finished, but she had rang me earlier on in the day practically crying down the phone to inform me that she had just met Zoë along with her two internet friends, Lila and Olivia (who she also met that day and who are also extremely lovely). She was so happy and when we FaceTimed the Sunday after Hello World, she still could not believe it had happened. I was so so happy that she had finally gotten to meet her biggest inspiration along with two of her bestest friends - all three of them were so happy and it was so lovely to see. Saira, if you're reading this, I have a lot of love for you and you are a wonderful human.
I also just wanted to add a little paragraph here to say how insanely proud I am of Zoë for how far she has come on her journey. If you have watched THIS most recent vlog, I am sure you are feeling the exact same proudness as I am. Honestly, for her to have been able to meet so many people last weekend AND go up on that stage in front of thousands of people is truly incredible. Her little message at the end of that vlog is the best message for anybody who feels like they can't do it, because you absolutely can. No matter what gets in your way and no matter what obstacles try and stop you from reaching your goal, you CAN do this. I am beyond privileged to call Zoë one of my biggest inspirations and I just wanted to put this little message on here as a reminder to you all that you are so much more than your anxiety and it certainly does not define you in any way, shape, or form.
That just about wraps up my post on Hello World, but to finish off, I would just like to say a huge thank you to every single person that made Hello World possible, from the managers and creators to the security team, the Hello World team, the Genting Arena team and so many more 'teams' of people. It truly was a wonderful weekend and it would not have been possible without any of you and your hard work and your commitment. Thank you so much. I'm hoping to make this blogging thing more frequent, but I just need to plan some posts. I hope you enjoyed this post and it gave you a bit more insight into the event and the weekend as a whole.
Have a wonderful week. All my love,
Liv :)
"Sometimes it takes a small (or large) slap in the face for you to realise which path you were heading down. Consider this yours." - Zoë Sugg.
