Socializing with Celebrity Connections

Today’s #TravelTuesday post comes from Jordan Schwartz, Social Business Associate at Actiance.

Our new best friend Miguel The Driver dropped us off front and center as event greeters hastily opened the doors of our black limo-esque Denali SUV and welcomed us onto the red carpet. Met by a barrage of camera flashes, the masses soon realized we were nobody of note and they turned their attention on to the next car. One quick picture with the Official CBS Photographer and my girlfriend, her sister and boyfriend, and their mom and I made our way down the lengths of paparazzi and E! Reporters.

Where was I?  Oh the Grammy’s (he said casually, like this happens every weekend..)

So how did I end up at the Grammy’s?  I guess I should really start with that.

My girlfriend’s mom happens to work for CBS and is “required” to go to both the #Grammys and the #Emmys every year, and this year I was lucky enough to get included in the invitation! Not that the whole red carpet/celebrity scene is my forte, but you’ve got to be excited about an invite like that. I pressed my new black suit and grey tie, and found myself back in Los Angeles where I spent 4 years at @UCLA

After being hurried along down the carpet as another face in the crowd, we found a few undisturbed seconds to take a couple pictures of our own at one of the classic Grammy signs. We made it through the down to Section 101, Row 2, Seats 1-5, and #instagram made its first appearance of my night as I snapped a picture of the stage and pushed it to twitter. One of my favorite parts of the night, we watched as the people of VIP-enough status to sit on the court floor filed in with their friends. Some of my favorite artists/stars of note were @TheBlackKeys, @TheLumineers, Fun. (@Ournameisfun), @Frank_Ocean, @Jtimberlake and @LenaDunham just to name a few.Naturally, celebrity hype and ‘fashion, fashion, fashion’ were central themes of night, but social media came in a close second. As you home viewers know from his opening speech, @LLCoolJ made sure to encourage everyone at home to tweet away with the hashtag “#Grammys” and mention him @LLCoolJ, noting that the Grammys in 2012 were the largest social media event to date and they hoped to break records again. What you didn’t see behind the scenes were the several other reminders to the live audience to post from the arena.

With such a large emphasis on social, I constantly checked twitter and posted (or tried to post) during my favorite performances trying to catch LL’s attention and be one of the random tweets read just after several commercial breaks throughout the night. My limiting factor was actually the data network in the arena. With everyone trying to tweet away, check in on foursquare, and post on their friends’ wall saying Justin Timberlake just walked by, it was hard to even get a post out.

Overall, seeing some of my favorite musicians sitting just rows away and braving the blinding flashes made for quite the night. Although I couldn’t do it every night (let’s say 20 performances was…stimulating), I would love to go back again for another 3-day music festival packed into one night.

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