On September 15th, 2012, I went on a cool trip I'm not gonna forget, to see the HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON Live Spectacular with the drama club.
First, I was dropped off at the Pottstown Mont Co campus, and almost immediately met up with a few of my friends from the club and the few family members brought along for the ride. Twenty tickets had been available, but I think we had two extra cause two people bailed. I'm pretty sure...
Anyway, we got on the shuttle bus parked right outside around four o'clock. We sat for a while 'cause a few of us ran late and we were supposed to wait till everyone was there. That already made it better than any random bus trip. The shuttle wasn't very big, maybe eight rows of seats on one side, so it was easier to interact with the others. That was key to more than half the trip, to tell ya the truth.
See, it's about an hour ride from Pottstown to the Blue Bell campus, and then the same amount of time from there to the part of Philadelphia where the show was gonna be. And as college kids and immature (come on, let's be honest) for the most part, we needed to keep our minds occupied. So we would all just name a bunch of random/stupid topics and discuss, laugh, and just keep each other amused. It went on after we went to the Blue Bell campus to pick up a few others who were coming.
The only really annoying part was, that thing in the back (behind the last row in my column of seats) that's apparently meant for handicaps, I don't know what it's called; for when someone in a wheelchair has to get on and off the bus-- anyway that thing and the rest of the shuttle would rattle loudly when we would hit a small bump, or pretty much anything. So we had to speak pretty loudly just to hear anything. None of us seemed to be the quiet type anyway, so it wasn't hard :)
Now, we got to Philadelphia and parked around ten after six, and then it got confusing. About half of us went somewhere to eat, while me and the others went straight to the door of the huge building to get our tickets scanned. It was pretty crowded, so I'm glad I went with them.
After the tickets, then it got kinda scary. The escalator we took to get to the section of the theatre where our seats were, it was so high. Literally, one gigantic lobby with two escalators and two extra stories on the left side.. So we were going up a three-story-high escalator. I had to shut my eyes just to avoid freaking out. I was relieved when we got to the top. We walked around the long hallway and balconies upstairs, seeing the city from there. When we found a doorway labeled 202 and 203, we walked through it and into the "theatre." Or should I say "stadium"?
Yeah! It was so freakin' huge, and we were on the third level of seats. THE THIRD LEVEL! So we were incredibly high and it was scaring the crap out of me. I did pretty well of not showing it very much except saying a couple times calmly that the height scared me quite a bit. Ads played in lights at the base of the third level, and it would make me jumpy when they would switch between ads 'cause for about a second it would get dark and then bright again. Not all of us were in our seats right away so I was able to slip out and wander the upstairs 'lobby' for a while until about ten to seven o' clock. I made my way back to my seat and finally relaxed. Took a few minutes, though.. Especially when the show finally started.
IT WAS INCREDIBLE! Ok, three quarters of the stadium were the seats, and the last bit was covered by black curtains and a giant screen. The floor was covered by a giant screen too, so it look like am Imax theatre or something. Besides the screen, the actors did a good job with the combat, weapons, and riding the dragons-- OH MY GOD THE DRAGONS! If you couldn't see the bases that were attached and making them move, you'd swear they were real. Pretty much every detail was exact in terms of how they all looked and sounded. I had never seen anything like it before, nor did I ever guess that I would. A bunch of people in the audience were taking pictures, so I took out my phone a few times to get some shots (unfortunately my phone takes really crappy pictures so I didn't have a lot of luck). There was a twenty-minute intermission around eight, and by then the huge windows were black and the lobby and halls looked a lot brighter 'cause of the darkness outside.
After the show, we walked out of the stadium and most of us were together. The rest of us would meet at the bus later. Going back down the escalator was easy, and we just walked straight out and got back on the shuttle bus, taking our seats and waiting for the others. When they finally got on and were seated, the bus lights turned off and we could hardly see each other but we could see the lights outside, which actually made it a bit easier to see each other.
The ride back, holy crap it was awesome. It was like the ride to the theatre, except we were even more obnoxious. A bunch of the things we talked about led to me and couple of the guys singing a bunch of random songs and making fools of ourselves, laughing like crazy and just being goofballs. The driver asked us to quiet down a little (twice, I think). One of the guys brought up an "Epic Rap Battles of History" video (on his phone) of Albert Einstein vs Steven Hawking, which we hovered over and listened intently. He was sitting behind me so I had to stand up and hang onto my seat.
I remember at one point he said we actually look better in the dark, and we all laughed at that.
It went on like that till we got back to the Pottstown campus between 11:30 and midnight. I just waited a minute or so until most of the others left 'cause I didn't wanna leave right away. But when I did, mom and dad were right there in the car. So I didn't have to sit around for another twenty minutes or so.
Overall, it was one of the best theatre experiences I've ever had, and not I'm not just talking 'bout the show.
PS If I see the show again someday (I'm pretty sure I will), lower seats PLEASE!
