Fangirl Spotlight: Hedy

One of the best things about traveling for music is all the friends you make along the way. So, we're beyond excited to bring you the Fangirl Spotlight series to introduce you to fellow fangirls you may meet on the road, tell you their stories, and encourage you to book that trip.

BASICS

Name: Hedy Phillips

Age: 32

Where do you live?: New York City

What do you do?: Journalist

Twitter: @JustHedyJ

Insta: @JustHedyJ

THE GOOD STUFF

Tell us about the first trip you took for a band/artist and what first got you into traveling for music. I grew up in a small town in Ohio, so there just weren’t a lot of concerts around me. The very first trip I took to go to a concert was much smaller than what I do now. When I was 15, my brother and I drove from Ohio to Pennsylvania for an overnighter to see O-Town and Britney Spears. It was the only way for me to see O-Town, and because my family is the best, they helped make it happen and it just grew from there. That was the first actual “trip” I took for a concert, but the first one I did on my own was when I flew from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2014 to see One Direction because I yet again lived in a place where someone I wanted to see wasn’t coming on tour.

Who have you traveled for the most? How many of their shows have you been to/how far did you travel for them? I’ve definitely done the most for Harry Styles. Since he’s gone solo, I’ve seen him 23 times. In 2017, I went to 6 shows in the US (plus the iHeart Radio Music Festival) and a show in London. In 2018, I saw him 15 times in the US and Canada. I think I added up the total miles and it was somewhere north of 30,000.

Why that particular artist/band? What about them, or their show, made you want to travel to see them? There are a lot of boring/personal reasons I travel that aren’t important to the story, but at the end of the day, I travel to see Harry because Harry’s worth it. I’ve also made so many friends through this fandom and by traveling to shows around the world to see Harry, I get to also see them. His shows feel like home and the fandom feels like family.

Have you traveled to see anyone else? I started traveling for One Direction in 2014 but really only traveled a lot for them in 2015. I saw them 4 times in the US and I flew to England for their last show in Sheffield. I’ve also conveniently caught shows while traveling to other places but haven’t traveled much specifically for shows.

Tell us about one of your fav tour memories. Going to Sheffield to see One Direction’s last show was so surreal. I decided on a whim that I should do it (I’m talking booking a flight/hotel/tickets about 2 weeks in advance) and went with a 1D friend I had just met only a month earlier. It was the best experience I’ve ever had. I left my phone at home so I could really soak it all in and it was magical. We were literally in town for one night and had third row seats. Being in a room with all my favorite people and hearing my favorite music and seeing all the emotions on the boys’ faces as they closed out their very last full-length show is something I’ll never, ever forget.

What’s your favorite city you’ve visited on tour? I always love a trip to London and Los Angeles; they’re two of my favorite cities. In summer 2018 when I toured for Harry, I got to see several new US cities I’d never seen before, which was really fun. Next tour, I want to expand to other parts of the world more, and I’m really excited to see places in Australia and Asia especially.

Fav venue you’ve traveled to? Probably my favorite venue I’ve traveled to thus far is the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, CA. It’s huge and iconic, and I saw One Direction play there in 2014. I’m really fortunate that several of my favorite and most well-known venues are right here in my home city, so those don’t count!

What are your bucket list venue destinations? Ah, there are so many, I can’t even think of what they all are. Venues, specifically, I want to see are Wembley Stadium in London and L’Olympia in Paris. Cities I want to see shows in would be Tokyo, Sydney, and Rio de Janeiro.

We get this question all the time, and we all have different answers, and I’m sure you get this a lot too: How are you able to travel to so many shows? There are a lot of factors that allow me to do what I do. Because I work in media, I’m able to pair a lot of my travels with work. By that I mean I can write stories about either the trip or the show, which helps offset some of the costs. For the most part, though, it’s a matter of being completely financially independent and being smart about my time and money. While I find it’s always worth it to travel for shows, I won’t put myself into crippling debt for it, so I have to be strategic! I also don’t have the luxury of working, working, working just to quit a job to travel and find a new one when I get back home. So I bank my time off work for as long as I can, I work from the road sometimes, and I call in favors where I can. I have friends all over the world, so I team up with them when I can to either travel together or just crash with them while I’m in town. It can be tough to make it all work, but with a lot, lot, lot of strategy and planning, I make it happen. I literally started planning my 2018 Harry tour the day the dates were announced in 2017 and was still figuring it out until the second I walked out my door for tour.

What do you love about traveling for music? I’ve always loved to travel in general and I’ve always loved going to concerts, so it only made sense to me to start pairing them so I could see new places and a concert along the way. Usually I travel FOR concerts but sometimes I’ll also find a concert while I’m on vacation, which has opened me up to new artists and incredible venues--one that stands out is seeing James Bay at the Ryman Auditorium while I was in Tennessee for a wedding!

Any music trips coming up soon? Right now, all I have planned is a trip to London in June to see the Spice Girls and a trip to Toronto in September to see Shawn Mendes. Hoping some more of my faves go on tour so I can make more plans!

Any advice for fangirls who want to start traveling for their favs? Do it. If you have the money to do it, you’ll never regret it. Don’t let anyone talk you out of it or make you feel bad about traveling for music. It’s always worth it.