All over the world, young girls retreat to their bedrooms throw on sequined dresses and knee high boots and crank up Taylor Swift’s music, all the while dreaming of one day meeting the Grammy winning songstress in person.
For 12-year-old Maggie Duplantier, a seventh-grader at Lynn Oaks School in Braithwaite, it actually was a dream come true. Maggie’s mom, Lynn Oaks Principal Kim Duplantier, said the best seats they could get for Swift’s recent concert at the New Orleans Arena were in the nose-bleed section.
Maggie a die hard “Swifty,” immediately set out on a mission to find out everything she could about the upcoming event. She scoured the Internet, and read everything written on Swift’s website. There she found info on Swift’s private after concert party called the “T Party.” Swift’s website describes the party as a small, private event that some of her biggest fans get selected to attend after the concert. These lucky few, usually around 20 or so, get to meet Swift and her band and take photos.
The selection process takes place during each concert, Swift’s mom and other members of her staff scour the audience looking for fans who stand out in the crowd. They are known to look high and low for the signs with the most bling, fans who have the flashiest outfits, or even a shy fan wearing a concert T-shirt just excited to be there.
After learning this, Maggie “begged and pleaded with me to go buy some battery operated blinking lights to put on a sign,” Duplantier said. “So we went out to find them,” she said. “But, it was impossible to find blinking lights that were affordable.”Duplantier said instead they came up with an alternate plan: spelling out “Taylor” with fluorescent orange poster board.
“We made each person their own letter and put black foam board behind it,” she said. “I could see the letters from across the arena that’s how bright they were.”Shortly after Swift took the stage, Duplantier, who had to sit on the other side of the arena, started receiving texts from the group claiming they got invited to the after party. “I thought I was being pranked and didn’t believe them,” Duplantier said. But after she started receiving pictures of the group actually wearing the wristbands to get into the private party, then she realized that it was not a joke.
Apparently, a woman from Swift’s organization spotted the girls and approached them with the invitation to attend. Duplantier said when the woman asked the group if they knew about the private party, and before she could get an answer the girls in the group starting screaming. After the concert, Duplantier met up with the group who were “in tears over the possibility of meeting Taylor Swift.”
The group was led into a private backstage area where they learned that they were six of only 12 people picked out of the crowd. Swift greeted and spoke to each person in the room. She took group pictures, and signed one item for each fan. Some of Maggie’s friends had her sign the actual signs they held up, while another had her sign her concert ticket, and one even had her sign her shoes. Duplantier said Swift commented to the group that she could feel the energy in the crowd and was happy to visit New Orleans.
Maggie and her friends spent about 25 minutes with Swift, while Duplantier waited outside. They emerged with the “biggest smiles you can imagine,” Duplantier said, and they “floated back to the car.”
Duplantier’s other daughter Brooke, who was part of the group, was on the eve of turning 15 when she was meeting Swift. Duplantier said Brooke said “it was the best birthday present she’s ever had.”