Her Story: Pepsi Concert Became the Scariest Night of My Life

This article has been very difficult to write since I haven’t been able to fully process my feelings, but please, bear with me. I don’t want this experience to be silenced. Everyone who was there deserves a platform, recognition, and validation. I’m trying my best to give them that. 

Many people can’t grasp the idea that being a fan of a musician is so much more than liking their music; they become your role model, a large part of your happiness, and a source of comfort during tough times. I’m tired of people picturing fangirls as delusional girls who spend all their time screaming over “some guy.” Harry Styles grew up with me, he was a huge part of my formative years and I have the happiest memories tied to the “One Direction days,” as my friends and I call them. 

If you know me, you know I’ve been the biggest Harry Styles fan for the last decade, and if you don’t, well, you just found out. I’ve been supporting Harry since One Direction, and I’ve been the biggest supporter of his solo career. The last time I saw Harry was in June 2018; I was lucky enough to see him on his first solo tour in Sunrise. It was the best time ever, screaming the lyrics to the album that made me radiate joy at any given moment and crying to the sad songs (and the moment of realization when I saw him wave at me). Fast forward to 2020. Harry’s Fine Line tour starts in March, and he is coming to Florida in August. I started the new year by telling myself “I see Harry this year!” and being ecstatic about it. But then I got an opportunity.

Harry announced that he’d be performing in Miami for the Planet Pepsi Zero Sugar Experience on January 31. At first, I was stoked, because his visits to Florida were very infrequent — but then I realized tickets were $300, and all the excitement went out the window. The week of the show, I was excited that he would be in the same state. He was performing the day before his birthday, and it was going to be such a special show. And then I got the chance of a lifetime — my best friends and I got tickets to the show two days before. We were in shock. We couldn’t believe we were seeing Harry seven months before our tour dates, in just two days. The adrenaline the next two days was insane — I couldn’t even sleep because I had so many butterflies. 

We woke up at 4 a.m. on Friday, January 31. This was the first time it didn’t take me an hour to get out of bed because we were SO excited. We were out the door by 4:30 and on the road, ready for a four-hour road trip. We made it to the venue around 10 a.m., and secured numbers 129, 130 and 131 in line. With how big the stage was, we figured that was easily third row. We. Were. So. Happy.  

This wasn’t my first rodeo camping for a concert, so I was aware that the excitement made the hours go by very slowly. Thankfully, it was kind of cloudy all day, and my friends made the time go by pretty fast. Around noon we started to hear music from the venue, and then it hit us — Harry was in there soundchecking. According to fans from other years, the Pepsi pre-shows were usually three or four of the artist’s most popular singles, leading up to a half-hour set. That’s what everyone was expecting for this concert until we heard soundcheck. I remember the moment I heard the intro to Golden, my heart dropped. It’s my favorite song from Fine Line, and I never imagined in a million years that I would hear it before August. That put a bigger smile on my face than I had ever seen before. He also soundchecked Canyon Moon, She, Treat People With Kindness, Ever Since New York, and Fine Line. That was when everyone in line realized we’d be getting a full set, and it was so exciting. 

The next few hours were long and full of anticipation. People kept asking us from the highway what we were waiting for, and we’d excitingly yell “HARRY STYLES!” each time. AT&T had set up a lounge where people in line could go get free drinks and food to help us bear the day, and I promise you, that was the only good part of the rest of the night. I remember seeing a venue worker and asking them if there would be any merch, and she guaranteed that there would be a bunch of great stuff to choose from. “You’re gonna LOVE it,” she told me. (Spoiler alert: there was no merch). More people with Pepsi lanyards were passing by us, and they kept thanking us for coming and guaranteeing us that this would be the best night. That was the comfort we needed after sitting in line for eight hours and the trust we wanted to put into this event, even though they weren’t even done building the venue when we got there. That was the first of many, many red flags.

At around 6:30 p.m., they were finally checking our IDs (this was an 18+ event) and lining us up on venue property. Everyone was so happy to be moving and getting closer to the start of the event, especially the girls who had been in line since Tuesday. Yes, Tuesday. Some of my friends were sleeping on the streets for three nights, but that’s not out of the ordinary, that’s just concert culture. Once we passed the ID check we got a visual of how many people were in front of us, and it really wasn’t that many. It oddly hadn’t hit us all day that we were seeing Harry; it didn’t feel real. Now we know why, but at the moment it was just something odd we couldn’t shake. 

While we were in this new line waiting to be let into the venue, I noticed that three of the security guards kept approaching a girl a couple of people ahead of me. And then I saw her face — she was in utter discomfort. They were harassing her, touching her without her consent, and asking for her number. The girls behind me started yelling at them, but they would not back down. “This is an 18+ event, right?” they said with a smug smile. I was disgusted. I called an officer over, as well as a “higher up” from the venue, pointed the guards out, and explained the situation. They disappeared, and I obviously figured they were going to say something. But they didn’t. They left us with those guards, feeling unsafe and unheard. “We’re about to go in, we’ll be fine,” we kept reassuring ourselves. But we weren’t gonna be fine. 

When they started to let us into the venue, they made us throw out our portable chargers. This didn’t make any sense to us, because I’ve never had to get rid of my portable charger at a concert. Girls were on the street for days, so they needed the source of power. Some even spent $50 on them, but in the moment we had to focus on running into the venue and securing our spots, so we threw them out without question. The same guards from earlier were the ones checking our bags and they clearly didn’t know what they were doing. They were super slow, and there were 15 metal detectors, so people who weren’t in front of us were being let in before us. When we finally got cleared to go inside the venue, my best friends and I linked hands and we sprinted. I felt like I was flying — I have never run that fast in my life. But we got our spots. We realized we were in the second row, just feet away from the barricade, and we were freaking out. I kept looking at the stage and imagining Harry singing right there. He was going to see me dancing around to his music. I could potentially talk to him. It felt so perfect, we kept saying, “We deserve this.” 

After about an hour of radio music blasting, everyone was pretty much let into the venue, and we could feel it. There were three floors — floors two and three were for VIP, and the cramped general admission floor was for everyone who got tickets. I was jealous of the girls at barricade, not because they were close, but because they had all the fresh air in the world. I had to keep getting on my tiptoes to try and inhale air from above because I was starting to get cramped. I was elbowed by everyone around me and I could feel the bruises starting to form. 

The openers were DJ Mark Ronson and Lizzo. The show was supposed to start at 8:30, but it was past nine and no one had started yet. Mark Ronson eventually came on and had an unbearably long set. Listen, I’m not here to belittle anyone’s talent, but it was the same blast of pounding radio music while we were all dehydrated and lacking air. We just wanted to see Harry. Lizzo came on and she was great — she put the energy that we were missing right back into us. Seeing her gave me a better perspective of how close I’d be seeing Harry, and I was so excited. 

When we started asking security for water during the break after Lizzo’s set, they told us to leave our spot and go get some from the bar. If you’ve ever been in a pit, you know that leaving your spot is a no-no if you’re expecting to get it back. Bottles were allegedly nine dollars each, so it wasn’t even worth it. I have never been denied water in a pit, especially when girls were getting visibly ill. Not only were they denying us water, but they were drinking their own bottles and holding back laughter. Girls started passing out, two threw up in the pit, and some were even crying because they didn’t know what to do. It was almost midnight; we had been in the pit for over three hours. It didn’t feel worth it to throw everything away and go to the back. When security finally brought out a case of water, they were just throwing it across the crowd like we were animals. One of the bottles hit the girl behind me and knocked her phone to the ground, cracking the screen. Anyone who got ahold of a bottle was grabbed at by other girls, desperate for just one sip. Things were getting really, really bad. We just wanted to see Harry.

At midnight the pit erupted, singing “Happy Birthday” since it was officially February 1, meaning it was Harry’s 26th birthday. And just a minute later, it turned into a nightmare. The lights turned on and an emergency message flashed. A man went on the mic and told us there was a severe storm approaching (it was already pouring and had been for quite some time) and that we had to evacuate immediately. Harry was not going to perform. Since the venue was temporary, it was not built for high winds or heavy rain, and the roof had begun collapsing. I read the warning three times over, looked at Harry’s guitar propped on stage that they had brought out when Lizzo was done, and broke down sobbing. I tend not to cry in front of people — it’s just how I am, and my friends told me that when they saw my reaction, they knew how serious this all was. Security guards started going down the barricade to record us crying, continuing to ridicule us as they had been the entire night. As we started dissipating, one thought it would be funny to say, “Hey! It was a misunderstanding, he’s still coming on.” Through the tears and the panic, everyone ran back to the barricade with our one glimmer of hope left. I was stepped on, shoved and nearly trampled to the ground.

“We gotta go, now.” My friends kept trying to get my attention but I was in utter disbelief. All the suffering, dehydration, being awake for 20 hours, in line for 10, in the pit for four — all for nothing. I turned around when I was ready to go, and what I saw still gives me chills. Since we were second row everyone was pretty much behind us, and all I saw were girls heavily sobbing and falling to the ground, hurt and confused. Everyone looked lost. We didn’t know what to do. Security was using barricades to force us out of the venue and into the storm. The rain was coming down in sheets; it looked like fog at one point. The water started to come into the venue and was flooding the floor. VIPs were falling as they were being pushed down the stairs. At one point, a woman with a Pepsi lanyard approached me. “Aw, are you crying?” she said to me. I was relieved to find my first source of comfort that entire day and talk to her. Maybe she had some important information to tell me. Before I could answer, she said, “Well, wipe your tears, you gotta leave.” That’s when I realized no one was there to help us. Security and workers alike were greedy, they just wanted their money and to be done with the night. Some random man with a DSLR thought it would be a great idea to shoot professional photos of us sobbing in the pit, to the point that we had to shove the camera out of our faces. We found them posted on Twitter without our permission the next day. This was the first time in my life I had no one to turn to. Everyone was unstable, there were no adults helping us, and it was just us against the world. 

Earlier in the day, we left our bags in my other friend’s car to avoid bag check while getting in. Thankfully, we were able to find her when the show ended. We had no choice but to run in the rain because we kept getting pushed out by force. It was either that or waiting for the roof to collapse on us. As we ran through the streets of Miami to find her car, we noticed VIPs from the show were being escorted off of the property on charter buses. We asked if they were open to the public and we were rejected immediately. We had no choice but to find her car and try to get out of there. Once we made it to her car, her boyfriend had an entire case of water in the trunk and started handing us some. We drank like we hadn’t had water in years. The moment we sat in the car, a wave of realization hit me, and I started crying again. I was in disbelief as we drove away from the venue. Girls were trekking through the flood in a single file line, tripping on debris and floating construction barriers. 

I’m forever grateful to my friend Sam and her boyfriend Dawson for being able to drive us out, because Ubers and Lyfts were ranging from $100-150 for just a few miles. One of my friends even waited for two hours to be picked up. My friend’s mom was going to pick us up, so we had to hop out of the car once we got off of the venue’s property. Most of the roads were closed because of the flood, so we had no choice but to get out on a random street. The water was up to our ankles and we waited with a police officer until we could find her mom. It was nearing 2 a.m. at that point, and thankfully there were a bunch of people around because there was also an ACDC concert that night. 

I got home at around 3:30 in the morning, after all the hassle with the traffic and getting to my car to make it back home. I was officially awake for nearly 24 hours, but I didn’t even feel tired. As I finally laid in bed, I felt the lowest I had ever felt in my life. Not because I didn’t see Harry, as that was the least of my worries at that point. Pepsi essentially left us for dead. They didn’t make a safe venue, they hired horrendous security, and they didn’t take any of our needs into consideration. This was the worst possible outcome.

As I sit here writing this article — with a terrible cold, may I add, from running through floods in cold weather last week — my heart still feels broken. I haven’t heard a single Harry song in about a week because it still pains me too much to even think about that night. We got a refund for our tickets, but that feels completely insufficient for what we went through. My heart aches for the girls who slept on the street for days before the show because their time and efforts were completely disrespected.

A picture of the setlist surfaced the morning after the show, and that broke my heart even more. There were songs from his first album that I’ll probably never get the chance to hear again. As I said earlier, we were expecting three or four songs, but this setlist was perfect. I couldn’t even dream of experiencing this, and it all got taken from me.

My biggest point of frustration is that the world moved on after this. I saw some tweets saying it was our fault that we wasted so much time camping, that we should’ve expected this because it was Florida weather. “No water is free, stop crying about it.” It just feels like the world doesn’t care, and that’s why I’m writing this article. Please check in on your friends if they went to the show, and if they didn’t, please don’t let this be silenced. For my sake and for those still suffering, give us a voice, let us be seen.

My friend made an Instagram post with videos, photos, and a pretty good summary of what went down that night, if you want to paint a better picture in your mind. 

I asked a few friends if they wanted to include quotes in my article for the sake of being heard. I’m grateful to have this amazing platform where I can share my stories, so I thought it’d be fair if they did too.

“Security was sexually harassing people at the front and one of the guards followed my group as we were crying leaving to continue sexually harassing my friend, making disgusting comments while we were all standing there traumatized. I’m diabetic, I was too scared to bring in food with their rules but if my blood sugar would have become low I know none of security would be responsive enough to do their jobs and get me something like soda to bring it up. if I were to have passed out I don’t have any confidence security or medical staff was adequate or helpful enough to bring the medical attention I would need, without which after passing out I would die.” – Val

“I was literally told to my face that I couldn’t go to the bathroom without leaving the venue and they didn’t know if I would be let back in. Me and a group of other girls were harassed multiple times by security, multiple people (including myself) were denied WATER when we felt like passing out and had to BEG for them to give us water, they started throwing the bottles into the crowd like we were animals. They ended up hitting a bunch of people on the head and cracked a girls phone, and they forced us to run into a thunderstorm without offering any help or protection.” – Ren

“I managed to convince the idiotic security guard to let me keep my battery pack (even though they were throwing out everyone else’s) in exchange for my number.” – Jennifer

“I slept on the streets since Wednesday, got sick, got front row, only to be denied water at first from security. When they finally gave us water, we had to share bottles amongst around ten people, so I got three sips of water total, which is probably more than a lot of people.” – Rachel

Thank you for hearing my story and the stories of others, and thank you for the support. Thankfully I’m physically safe, but the emotional trauma will stick for a while. Two words and I’m signing off: F*%k Pepsi.

• harry styles
• Miami
• Pepsi