Ghostland Observatory ringing in the New Year

Happy New Year 2011! The year started out pretty nicely. Besides coming down with a flu that prevented me from wearing the chilly minidress and sky high stilettos I wanted to ring in the new year with, my boyfriend and I were able to attend the sold out "Lights all Night" VIP show at The Dallas Marriot Hotel-city Center. (Event site: http://lightsallnight.com/) And by attend, I mean walked right in. Through the front doors, and headed right through security, tucked in the safety of a crowd of 20 or more $115-dollar-ticket-paying guests.

This wasn't our first time to get into a sold-out show. Its fairly typical for said boyfriend and I to travel to a concert that we have no guarantee that we'll get into, and find ourselves falling into the luckiest of circumstances. Like the time we used a couple "found" wristbands and bluffed our way through a back door entrance to see Korn, Rob Zombie, and a handful of other similar artists at the Rockstar Mayhem Madness Festival. Or the time we payed $45 for general admission tix in the nosebleeds to see Paul McCartney, then ended up fifteenth row from the front in the upper $500 dollar seats the same night by some extravagant twist of fate.

Either way, we never imagined it'd be this easy to get in. The security was rumoured to be pretty tight at this particular gig, and neither of us had braved this venue before, so we imagined there would be a lot of walking around and the possibility of a long night in the bitter Texas cold. So when we found parking less than a mile from the entrance, and sauntered in through the front entrance like it was nothing, it was turning out to be a pretty good kickoff to the New Year.

Once inside, we found a place near the railing to camp out and shed our many layers of coats and jackets into a large heap at our feet. Standing out like a vagabond, my moccasins and knit sweater made me a definite misfit among all the flashy socialites of downtown Dallas, which put me in the most agreeable of moods. But, like I said before, we could never have anticipated how easy it could have been to breach security, so I was forced to deal with it.

The night went fairly smooth, security was pretty lax for those of us on the upper levels of the event, so we only relocated a couple of times, once to find the restroom, and again to get a better view of the headliners, Ghostland Observatory. It wasn't my first time to see Ghostland, and this was definitely their most extravagant lightshow yet. All in all it was a good night. Lots of people watching, gorgeous venue, well put together event with some pretty cool Djs and electro bands. Definitely a nice way to ring in the New Year, next time I'll just be sure to sneak an agreeable change of clothes in with me. (And a camera!)

-S.V.