When my daughter told me she no longer wanted to attend the Taylor Swift concert I’d managed to secure tickets for, I thought she was joking.
“Mum, I don’t really want to go to Taylor Swift anymore,” she told me one evening, catching me completely off-guard.
I wanted to yell and scream at her: “Don’t you know what I went through to get these tickets?”
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It wasn’t easy, and took a failed effort during the first round and then a last-minute dash to the ticket booth at Panthers in Penrith by my partner Shamus to get them.
We could only get tickets to Melbourne and we live in Sydney, but I was willing to figure that part out later.
Shamus and I were so happy to have gotten them for her. So many others had missed out. Surely she’d been happy and excited and maybe even appreciative?
She was suspiciously nonplussed. I decided not to panic. Maybe she didn’t want to let on how grateful she was, being a 14-year-old girl and all.
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She was playing her cards close to her chest. Surely she was happy. But any outward demonstration of this would give us the power, and being a teenager that was not an option for her.
Then, she said she didn’t want to go. I asked her why and she said, “I only really wanted them because everyone else was getting them, but now I don’t want to go anymore.”
She then named some more obscure performers and bands she’d prefer to see in concert.
I told Shamus and he suggested we hold onto the tickets, just in case she changed her mind. She didn’t.
We checked and we checked and eventually came to the conclusion we’d have to sell them, but how?
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I consulted with 9Honey’s resident Taylor Swift expert, Jemima Skelley. You may have seen her on Today this week, explaining outfit options for concert-goers.
She said the best way to sell them was to someone we knew, perhaps in the office, because a lot of trust would be involved. I was selling them for cost, but the tickets wouldn’t be made available until very close to the concert date.
I shared a post in our office chat and within seconds, they had been claimed, by a Swiftie who had tried and failed to get tickets. She had tried for shows in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore – no luck.
The office chat board was flooded with congratulations and I screenshot some of the messages and sent them to a thoroughly deflated Shamus.
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“The tickets have found a better home,” I consoled him. And they definitely have.
I can’t even describe the relief I feel at not having to attend the Taylor Swift concert. I just can’t be bothered.
I have heard stories of people spending up to $3,000 on interstate flights and accommodation to get to them and I can think of so many better uses for that money and time and energy and effort.
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Even if I had gotten tickets to Sydney I didn’t really want to go. But I would have done, for my daughter.
She’s never properly explained why she doesn’t want to go, but I have my suspicions. Shamus thinks she’ll regret not going when the concerts begin, but that’s a life lesson she’s just gonna have to learn.
I’m sure there will be a next time, hopefully when she is old enough to attend with friends and my involvement only extends to lending her my car, or topping up her Opal card.