Meet & Greet with Rita Ora - 29th January 2013 - Newcastle

Hi guys.

Ok, so I know this isn't a new nails post, but I just have to do a quick post on this because it was one of if not the best moment and experience of my life to date!

On Tuesday I had tickets to go and see Rita Ora in concert at my local O2 Academy in Newcastle. I had seen that her management team were running competitions giving the option to win meet and greets for selected venues if you uploaded a picture to Intsagram and tagged it #RadioactiveTour. I was at school at the time, so I didn't have my tickets with me to take a picture of myself with them, so I immediately thought I didn't have much of a chance at all. However, I knew I had nothing to loose so I chose to upload a picture of both my ticket with a signed copy of Rita's debut album, ORA, that I own.

It felt like such a long wait before the winners were picked, and I honestly wasn't expecting to win at all. Then, to my surprise, I got the notification through to my phone to say that her management had commented on my photo! I just saw 'WINNER!' and I almost died on the spot. I couldn't even believe it. I was in my English lesson and I couldn't even focus to do any work for the rest of the afternoon because I was just far too excited.

My winning photo!

We were told to arrive at the venue by 6pm and someone from Rita's team would could outside to pick us up and take us inside. They were running late though so it was after 6:20pm when we actually got to go inside. This had its consequences later as it meant we didn't get to stand in the front row at the barrier as they had to let the other people who were queuing outside in whilst we were in the meet and greet. It was raining and really windy so we were all panicking about looking an absolute mess next to Rita when we got photos taken with her! But anyway, when we were took inside, there was a guy on the door who checked our names on a list and then we were lead backstage to the dressing rooms! At this point I was almost hyperventilating haha. We all lined up on the stairs and waited whilst Rita was doing  some press interviews. It seemed like we waited so long here, but it wasn't too bad because at least we were out of the rain and had at least half an hour to dry off.

It finally got to 7pm and the guy came out and said that she was ready to see us! It was two people at a time. My sister and I were the third group in the queue, so we got in petty quickly after this. We walked into the room and there she was. Right in front of me. I couldn't quite believe my eyes as it didn't feel real! She is even more perfect and flawless in real life. I tried my best to keep myself composed for the few minutes that we had with her because I thought to myself no way am I spoiling this moment, I can fangirl after haha.

This is a summary of what happened when we went in:
Rita said "Hello! Nice to meet you." and gave me a big hug. Then she was like "Wow, you're so pretty!" (as you can imagine, at this point I thought I was going to wake up from a dream or something lol) "Come in close for a photo." She put her arms around me and my sister and her professional photographer took a photo of us together. Then she said "Do you want me to sign anything for you?" So I said "Yes please, my ticket if you don't mind". I was practically shaking at this point! She signed both our tickets and whilst she was doing this I obviously noticed her nails, as I had seen the design around on Twitter the day before. "I love your nails!" I exclaimed. She replied "Oh thank you. I'm still in the middle of getting one of them done! That's why I was a bit late" and she showed me her blank thumb (hahaha). Then she said "Woah, let's see yours.. Wow! They are amazing! Is it your 18th today?"(I'm still rocking the birthday nails from last week! lol) I told her no it wasn't today and how it was on Friday, and then she was like "Aw, happy 18th for friday then! Hope you had a lovely day". I was aware we'd already had a lot of time with her and the next pair would be waiting for their turn so we wrapped up our conversation. Then just before we left, she said "Thank you so much for coming, I hope you enjoy the show" so I finished with "We definitely will! Thank you so much."

This is the front of the venue, the sign for the dressing rooms backstage,
my signed concert ticket and then the photo of myself and Rita!

The concert itself afterwards was amazing. She is an amazing live performer. And the whole night was made even better by getting this once in a lifetime opportunity to meet her. It's been 2 days now and I still can't actually believe it happened! I set the picture as my phone screensaver so every time I unlock my phone everything comes flooding back, but it's so so so unreal.

And that was the day I got to meet one of my idols! Sorry if I've bored you with this post, I'll be back to my normal nail stuff next time. I just couldn't not tell you guys about it. Thanks for reading if you did! :)

Until next time,

Models Own Bottle Shop & Colourcopia at Westfield London

Okay, so I had the most amazing day ever yesterday. I went to see Rita Ora in concert in Newcastle. But not only that, I only got to meet her before the show! How crazy is that?! The experience was unreal. If you know me well you'll know that I absolutely adore Rita and she's one of my idols, so it meant so much to be able to meet her like that. I know this isn't related to my blog but I'm going to do a post on the full night later this week, I'm just waiting for the picture I got with her to be put up by her management team. :)

But anyway, just a quick post today on two of my favourite shops to go to when I visit London! As you've probably established by now, I'm a huge fan of both OPI and Models Own. In Westfield Shopping Centre at White City/Shepherd's Bush, London, there is a pop-up Models Own stand and a shop named Colourcopia that stocks OPI. Lena White (OPI UK Distributor) opened Colourcopia a couple of years ago in addition to the nail bar they have in Selfridges on Oxford Street. Both of these stores are on the first floor of the shopping centre, pretty close to each other - how convenient!

Not really sure what these two girls are doing?

The Models Own bottle shop is quite simply fab. It's so unique because yep, you guessed it, it's in the shape of a nail polish bottle! How cool is that!? The bonus about the Models Own store is that you can get the full range of products (unlike at other stockists e.g. Boots) and still not have to pay postage to buy items from their website. They also usually have some description of offers on. I've heard that these are almost the same if not similar to the deals offered on the website, so I guess you're not missing much - it just means you get to avoid p&p, which is always a bonus for me. When I was there this weekend, they were offering 3 nail polishes for £12 and 6 bottles for £20 - saving you a considerable amount as one bottle of polish would usually cost you £5.

Here you can see the "bottle shape" of the store

Colourcopia also have a range of lacquers on offer, compared to if you just went to a local beauty supply store. They are currently clearing their stock of Nicole By OPI polishes as they are no longer stocking the brand (sad times), so they are all £5 at the moment, but only in store. I'm not sure how long the polishes will be available so if you want any I suggest you get down their quick! I also noticed that all bottles of Shatter lacquers were £4.50 and a "last chance to buy" section of regular OPI containing a few older shades like Fiercely Fiona, but I already had all of these ones so didn't get any. There was however no prices specified for these so I'm not sure if they were even discounted but still, a good way to get your hands on some discontinued polishes, even if you do have to pay the £11 RRP.  Again, not sure now long these will be there for so get down quickly! Perhaps they rotate the shades on offer here throughout the year? There is also the option to have your nails done here or at the nail bar in Selfridges, which is a nice touch. If you look on the Lena White or Colourcopia website you can see the various packages available with the prices for each one. I think you get a discount if you buy a polish towards your manicure.

Colourcopia is the store in the middle of this shot, next door to Pret (sorry it's not the best picture)

Have you visited either of these places before? What do you think?

Also who likes my new blog look? I'm really proud as I managed to do it all by myself!

That's all for today's post, so bye for now!