luvin mika 4eva

Brilliant! I spent a few years dragging friends hoping that they would enjoy themselves as much as I did but it never worked out and I was so nervous in Cheltenham that it would be the same again but he loved it.

The Bristol Centre one? We're staying there too. Just tomorrow night but we'll have a nice little group to walk back with after! Hope everyone's had a lovely time at the meal! Shame I couldn't make it but I'm only an hour on the train from Bristol so made sense to just come tomorrow afternoon. I'll be bringing my boyfriend Alex who I've managed to indoctrinate into thinking he genuinely wanted to come Nah he really made an effort to listen to the playlist I gave him, took him to Cheltenham and he sang his heart out and came away saying Mika was hands down the best performer he'd ever seen live.

My email came in at 9:01 but in case anyone else needs it presale is here

The logical part of my brain says cancelling an entire tour 3 weeks before it starts has to cost a hell of a lot of money so there must be a very good reason, he's not just doing it for the hell of it. But I'm currently getting over covid, after a really rubbish month and this holiday and gig was the light at the end of the tunnel so I'm finding it quite hard to just let it go right now. Edit: Also I had to leave early from London in July because I needed to catch the last train home and I missed the last 2 songs so I literally booked this gig to make up for that.

That's absolutely how it feels. Especially given we know how keen he is on the art side of things and how involved he is with all aspects of a show. Definitely smacks of "It's not fitting my artistic vision so f*ck all of you and the holidays/hotels/flights you've all booked to come see me I don't wanna". I'm still going to Italy because I was looking forward to my holiday (birthday trip and my flights are non-refundable) but I am so disappointed that there's no concert to finish my trip. It was the whole reason I actually booked the holiday when and where I did. I would've been perfectly happy with a reduced show and a promise of the full one in future. Depending on dates I would've tried to do another trip when it came round again to a different city to see the full show. Now I'm feeling very reluctant to ever travel to see him again, I'll wait till he decides to grace the UK with his presence again.

Managed to find the pens at Ryman in the UK, they're obviously pretty popular there weren't many of the sets left. Although they are on B1G1F and the sets are so much better value. Wish I'd come on here first, those gift sets are gorgeous! I took pictures of the stand, it actually has Mika on it! I wanted to get the dark blue and pink frixion pens but couldn't justify 2 for £4 over 6 for £10 so I got the set with the blue frixion and the roller set. The frixion set was showing as out of stock on Ryman's website but they had at least two sets in the shop so worth going to look anyway. Very pleased with my pens but might still get one of the gift sets when they're released here, depends on price!

Yeah I wish I'd been quick enough to get my phone out and snap a picture! Unfortunately my art skills are quite lacking, might have to see if I can describe it to an arty friend to draw it for me. I know he does do that but there didn't seem to be any discussion with Curtis and Max telling them which one's to do next so I think it was planned. No the other winner was there too, he just didn't bother identifying himself. Same with the Choir actually, there was one other english girl there but I was the only one who spoke up. I chatted to the other winner on fb a little bit before the trip. His wife works with Karen (ewokwicket1) but they had never seen him live before and only had LICM so they weren't actually real fans I really wasn't happy when I found that out and told him I'd seem Mika 7 times in 10 years so I think he kept quiet because he knew it wouldn't be right to speak up over me, if that makes sense? One thing that was surprisingly fair of Peugeot, we got basically the only 2 viable flights that would get us to Paris in time and would get us home not too late the next day which gave us almost exactly 24 hours in Paris (we got to the hotel at 2:30ish tuesday and left at 2 on wednesday). The other winner was flying from Bristol at 7:30am on tuesday so they will have arrived in Paris around 10/11 in the morning. I checked flights back to Bristol on the wednesday and there was one at 10:30ish and another at 7/8 in the evening but he told me they were getting 'a whole 24 hours in Paris' so they must have been sent home on the early one even though there was a later one they could have got. It could be that the later one was all booked but I like to think it was Peugeot making sure both prizes were as similar as possible so I wouldn't feel like I missed out on an extra half a day in Paris just because I live in the middle of nowhere and the other winner lives very near a city with an airport. Also explains why in my brief interaction in Paris with them Dad heard the wife say 'Can we go now?' right after they had their picture with Mika, so they missed out on all the extra food and wine/champagne to go back to the hotel! But they had been walking round Paris all day at that point and were having to get up earlier than us to have breakfast as soon as it opened and be all packed and check out probably before 8 to get their car to the airport.

Gig report! (and the rest of my Paris trip) Tuesday Morning 6:30 we got picked up, not by the mercedes we were told would be coming but in an Audi A8 (which incidentally is one of Dad’s favourite cars) which set the tone a bit for the rest of the trip. There were a few unexpected surprises, which I will be emailing Peugeot about tomorrow. We arrived at Heathrow over 3 hours before our flight was due and got through security pretty quickly so we went and watched the planes for a few hours. Plane journey was uneventful thank god, I haven’t flown much but Dad is big into planes so every little noise Dad would go ‘Landing gear up’ or whatever which was helpful! That noise is normal, good to know! Arrived at Charles de Gaulle where another driver was supposed to be picking us up, there was no one with a sign saying ‘Briggs’ or ‘Peugeot’ so we didn’t know what to do. After the wrong car turned up in the morning I wasn’t sure I could trust any of the transfer details but I texted the number I was given and the driver called me back. He had a sign saying ‘Crown Agency’ which is apparently the agency Peugeot used to book the trip. We didn’t know that! None of the details I had mentioned the name of the agency. We arrived at the hotel about an hour earlier than the itinerary said which was good but then they asked us for a credit card ‘for damage deposit’. Neither of us had brought a card with us. We thought we were only going for 24 hours, we both have apple pay on our phones if we did desperately need more money for something. So they asked for €100 instead. We only brought €200 total and we thought that was excessive just for 2 days. So we had to give up half of our money as soon as we arrived. So first we went to check out the Peugeot Showroom on the Champs-Elysee where the showcase would be later then we headed for the Eiffel Tower. Got a few pics then it started raining Went back to the Champs-Elysee to get dinner and caught a little bit of the set-up for the evening with a ‘stage’ about a foot high with the piano and a few other bits. Got back to the showroom just before 7:30 to find a bit of a crowd gathered around the barriers, maybe 30-40 people? They didn’t start checking tickets and IDs until a little before 8 but we did finally get let in and it was a proper corporate event with complementary champagne and random canapes. People started hovering around the stage so I decided to grab an open spot behind the piano. Most people were crowding around the front of the piano because that would appear to be the front but it was a circular stage so I thought I don’t care, he never sits still in front of the piano for more than 30 seconds at a time so anywhere would be fine! Was wrong unfortunately he did stay sat the whole time but he did a little Q&A thing (I think? It was entirely in french so I don’t have a clue what was actually being said) where he was stood right in front of me ahem, facing away from me a little They had a big screen over to one side that was playing Mika’s advert on repeat. They had us all watch it then introduced Mika to properly start the showcase I’m not sure where the livestream kicks in but I have a video of the Q&A if you didn’t get to see it. It’s all in french and I didn’t understand a word so if someone could translate or at least give me a summary that would be lovely! Luckily it wasn’t all french, Mika started with a french introduction then said ‘Don’t worry I won’t only be speaking french, I know we have some people from the UK here’ *looked around* ‘somewhere?’ So obviously I said ‘Here! Behind you!’ and waved. Then, and I can still barely believe this happened, he started talking to livestream ‘Hello from the Champs-Elysee, with my friends here, my french friends, and one english person, representing the UK, what’s your name?’ I just about died, my heart was racing (literally I’ve just checked my fitbit and my HR jumps about 20 points!) and managed to squeak out my name. ‘So from me, Heather *points to me* and all of us, *some french that I didn’t understand until bonjour bonsoir*’ little clipped video I also put on facebook this afternoon. It’s very jumpy because I was throwing my hands up to wave. First song up he covered She’s Always A Women To Me which was beautiful, I was looking round the crowd a bit and everyone was just kind of standing there, no one else seemed to be singing along. There were quite a few more people than had been queueing, 100-150 maybe? Could’ve been more I’m not sure but they kept coming in for what seemed like ages after the original queuers had got through. Next up Grace Kelly where Mika discovered no one had actually switched on the piano! He got it going and this time people started singing along and looking like they were enjoying themselves. I was also right next to where Max was on the stage and it was really nice to hear him singing. I’ve listened to my video for this and you can hear me singing rather badly so I’m not going to put it or any of the others up unless you can’t hear me. It’s all on the stream anyway! He did Good guys with a new(?) ending complaining to his mumma about the lack of good guys which led straight into Lollipop with 2 of his extra ‘now I’m xx years old’ sections, when he did the 1st one I thought he’d made a mistake saying he was 32 years old! The person next to me’s phone rang right after lollipop ended and Mika took it and tried to talk to the person’s daughter in french but got hung up on! Next was Pick up off the floor which I’m not actually sure I’ve seen live before, it was gorgeous. Honestly it was so nice seeing Mika in such an intimate setting, hearing every little nuance of his voice and from where I was actually hearing it not 100% through amplification. Boum Boum Boum - an organiser came up to me at the start of this one and told me to meet her by the car in the corner in 10 minutes, and to make sure I went, I figured this was about a meet and greet so kept a close eye on the time after that (luckily I bought a fitbit on my birthday so it was only a flick of my wrist to check the time, didn’t have to keep checking my phone) Relax - 3 new albums later this is still Dad’s favourite Mika song so that made his day and I could hear him singing behind me, normally he stays quiet. Then was Underwater and Elle Me Dit, I pretty much completely missed these because I LEFT MY PERFECT FRONT ROW SPOT 3 FEET FROM MIKA to go to the back corner and stand behind about 6 rows of people. Anyone on here who’s met me will know, I’m 5’6”. I literally couldn’t see a thing. The stage was only raised a foot and Mika was sitting the whole time. The woman was nowhere to be found and I was pretty pissed off. If I’m honest I was almost crying it seemed so unfair. I had an amazing spot, he only played 9 songs so I literally missed almost a quarter of the entire show. I’m still annoyed, there was no reason I couldn’t have gone straight over there when EMD finished. Dad went and found her during EMD and she came and told me to stay put and I’d get to meet Mika afterwards. After the show she told us he played a couple of extra songs and it was meant to end at the point she told me to go over but I don’t think that was true. I think he played exactly as many as he was supposed to but it took longer because the start was so delayed (and he was quite chatty). I was only waiting a few minutes before he came out to start doing pictures but was told to stay put and I would be called forward when it was my turn. This was a bit of a mistake, it was just the corner of the showroom so everyone could see Mika was there and started crowding over, I think it should have been somewhere more closed off. I brought an iPad case specially for him to sign so I got that and my sharpie out ready. When they called me through he recognised me (or it could have been because they called me over by shouting ‘English! English!’) And called me by name I sort of shoved the iPad case at him and said ‘Could I be very cheeky and get you to sign this?’ This particular iPad case was also signed by Daniel Radcliffe a few months ago, Mika drew an arrow to Daniel’s signature and started writing, I said what are you writing and he just laughed then I could see and laughed too. (Front pic of iPad too to show why it’s my favourite, was so rushed both times neither Mika nor Daniel got to actually see what they were signing!) Then the organiser people tried to push me on so the next person could come in while I was fumbling with the case and pen trying to close both before I ruined the signature and Mika stopped them saying we hadn’t done the photo yet and pointed out my Dad ‘This your photo person?’ ‘Yep that’s Dad’ *He waved* ‘Hi Dad!’ put his arm around me while Dad took the photo (turned out he actually took about 4 seconds of video instead which I have grabbed some stills from). I reluctantly walked away and Mika said ‘Nice to meet you’ which confirmed to me that he definitely didn’t recognise me from the choir in London, was 2012 to be fair. That’s twice now that I’ve been ‘The only english…’ when meeting Mika! I was the only person in the Choir who spoke up when he asked if there was anyone actually from England in the London choir and now the only english fan in the crowd in Paris! He kept taking pictures for a few more minutes then disappeared. Saw Max and Curtis come up to the stage to get things a couple of times but the only time I saw Max I was on the other side of the room so couldn’t get across quick enough to ask him for a picture (I love Max, he was really nice to me in London). The party in the showroom kept going for quite a while with more wine and food. We talked to the woman again who asked me to send her my picture with Mika for ‘promotional material’ then we left. We got given gift bags on the way out and I got my picture taken again, more promo pics I think of them giving me the bag. What was my loot? A Peugeot Music CD and a Peugeot brand combination salt and pepper mill. We went back to our hotel to drop stuff off and change shoes to find someone had been in our room and left a little present, bit surprised but got to try some Parisian macarons without have to pay €1.50 each! Then we walked back to the Eiffel tower to see it all lit up. I don’t think the photo does it justice, it was amazing! Obligatory forced perspective picture. Then back to the hotel where we basically collapsed. It was about 11:30pm by the time we got back and we’d both been up since 5am. Day 2 Breakfast was included in our trip (thankfully, sign on the room door said €25 each!) so we had a lovely french breakfast and tried to decide what to do before we left. The weather forecast had said rain so we were planning to maybe go to an aquarium I spotted just off the Seine but it didn’t open until 10. We checked out and got Dad’s €100 back then left our bags with the concierge. Luckily the rain held off so we went on a walking tour of Paris. First to the Moulin Rouge which wasn’t as impressive as we expected. Saw a picture of it lit up with the windmill spinning in a shop a bit down the road which looked more like it! Then up a lot of steps to the Sacre-Coeur, pretty amazing view looking right across Paris Decided to make it a bit more of a circular walk and head back to the hotel via the Louvre. About half-way there the rain started and unfortunately didn’t stop for the rest of the day. Diverted slightly from the route to pass by a certain museum, we had decided beforehand though that it wasn’t worth paying to see a waxwork of Mika when were actually seeing the real thing the day before! Stopped at a few souvenir shops, got a keyring, some matching bracelets for me and my best friend, a pretty new bag and of course a small model of the Eiffel Tower. Are you actually allowed to visit Paris without buying an Eiffel Tower replica? Final stop was the Louvre which would’ve been better had it not been raining I think. I was a bit miserable at this point. We did a lot of walking over the 2 days and I had a blister, add in the rain and it felt like a bit of a slog. Started walking back to the hotel, stopped to get some lunch, a lovely hot dog baked in a baguette and covered in cheese. A few minutes after that I wasn’t paying attention and Dad suddenly stopped and said ‘Mika!’ Obviously that caught my attention as I was ducking out of the way of some guy in a blue suit’s umbrella. Yeah, Mika was the guy in the suit!! I’m so annoyed with myself for not spotting him quicker but he was on the phone so wasn’t paying attention either and it would’ve been rude to interrupt anyway. I had my hair up in a bun because I dyed the ends bright pink on sunday and didn’t want the dye to leak all over my graduation hoody so I was also missing my most identifiable feature. I turned around and watched him walk away debating whether or not to run after him, he was wearing his Louboutins, I could see the red sole as he walked. So that was a bit of a perk up in our last hour in Paris You’d think that would be the end of it but we still had some drama left. Got back to collect our bags from the hotel to be told the city tax hadn’t been paid and we owed them €4.96 Our driver came and we had the Crown Agency issue again, they were looking for Crown and some random name, the receptionist asked if they meant Brown and eventually came and asked Dad if it was for us since we were the only people waiting. Our flight wasn’t until 6 but Peugeot had arranged our car for 2 so we got the airport with over 3 hours to kill again. Spent almost €10 on a coffee and a hot chocolate from starbucks and bought an Eiffel Tower picture from a shop to clear out our euro coins. Then our flight was delayed 30 minutes and they changed the gate without announcing it! We’d been in the same seats at our supposed gate for 3 hours, Dad went to the bathroom and checked the board we were sat behind when he came back to find we were supposedly boarding 3 gates further down! This one obviously isn’t Peugeot’s fault but the main contact details for our flights were set to someone at either the agency or peugeot, not me or Dad. So even though I added myself to the details online on Monday night (along with filling in all of our passport information which was blank - that one is their fault) I didn’t get any notification of the delay to our flight because they were the primary contact not me! We finally get to boarding the plane and the cabin’s full. At least a dozen people still waiting to board, including us, and they’re saying all luggage now has to go in the hold. Thankfully we both had fabric bags rather than the mini suitcases so we were told ours could go under the seats. Someone in front of us was arguing because they had a connecting flight to Brazil at 9pm and couldn’t afford to wait for baggage reclaim. They stored her bag on the flight deck in the end. I think just so they could get the line moving again. All the stuff with the bags having to be moved delayed us another 15 minutes. But the flight back was uneventful, still raining in Paris so couldn’t see much of anything past the airport. Got through Heathrow and found our driver from the previous day waiting. Felt a bit bad for him really because he lived 45 minutes the opposite direction from Heathrow so we got home just before 9pm and he had to drive another 2 hours plus still to get himself home. Not to mention the fact that to pick us up at 6:30 the first day he must have left home before 4am! 24 hours in Paris plus walking through 2 airports we walked just over 16 miles in total over the 2 days. No wonder I was exhausted! But it was a good trip overall. Would’ve preferred to not miss the last 2 songs and to get a bit longer to talk to Mika, didn’t even have time to tell him it was my birthday. I was going to wear a badge saying Birthday girl but I managed to leave it in the hotel room. Also didn’t have time to ask him my big question, I got a dragon tattoo to celebrate the end of uni and I wanted to ask him for name ideas since Melachi and Amira are such cool names. But it was a free trip to Paris so I can't complain too much can I?! It's mostly going to be a 'for future reference' email to Peugeot reminding them not to assume everyone is a frequent traveller. Most importantly I finally got a solo picture with Mika and there's a possibility he might remember my name in future??? Might have to keep my hair pink forever to make it easier! Well done to anyone who’s actually read all of this, I’ve just pasted it into word and it’s almost a third the length of my dissertation! I started writing this at about 10pm I think? It’s 2:30am now! I’m going to bed!

Gig (+ trip in general) report coming. I've been writing it for 4 hours and it's pretty long but comes complete with photos and a couple of short videos! Just need to sort the formatting and get MFC smilies and pretty links in.

Hi everyone, quick update about the Peugeot gig tomorrow. I've finally been given all of the information (we're leaving in less than 12 hours!) They're calling it a Private Showcase of Mika and the invite says it will be broadcast on social media so you guys might get to watch live but they haven't said where so I assume keep an eye on Peugeot's facebook page around 7:30 (Paris time) tomorrow night I'm not sure where to post this for more people to see it? Feel free to quote this in a proper thread... In terms of my 'prize' we're being picked up at home at 6:30 tomorrow morning in a mercedes to be driven to Heathrow. Not arriving at the hotel (4 stars!!) until about 3:30 apparently so then have 4 hours free to explore Paris before heading to the venue. No idea if I get to meet Mika but I will be maximising my chances by wearing a large pink badge that says Birthday Girl (we'll just ignore the fact that my birthday was actually Saturday ). Also no idea what time it ends but if it's not too late it would be nice to go and see the Eiffel Tower all lit up. Then the next day we have more free time until 2pm when we'll be taken back to the airport Not really sure what we're gonna do that morning other than just wander about. Any suggestions greatly appreciated! We have about 4 hours the first day but we need to have dinner at some point in that then 5ish hours the next day and will have to walk everywhere. I'm assuming souvenirs will be easy to find!

Obviously! I already said to Deb on twitter I'll be taking notes! Thanks everyone

Yes I am! So excited to have won! They commented on my entry on facebook yesterday morning. I sent them a PM and was asked to confirm I accept the prize (because apparently a message saying thank you for picking me I'm so excited wasn't accepting the prize!). Now I have to wait for them to contact me again at some point in the next few weeks. I've looked at the other entries and Peugeot's pages on twitter, facebook and instagram and I can't find anything showing the contacting any other winners yet so I don't think they've picked anyone else yet? Unless they've DM'd someone on twitter but the T+Cs said the winner would be mentioned in a post. I dunno! I feel like I should say at this point, before I start getting requests to be my +1, my Dad is gonna be coming with me. He's (almost) as much of a Mika fan as I am. He's driven me to most of the gigs I've been to but only got to actually see him for the first time last year. We're both very excited to see Mika again and equally excited to spend a day or 2 in Paris! I've been on a school trip when I was 14 but it was only 2 nights with the only full day in Disneyland. As far as seeing Paris went, we got a short boat tour down the Seine before we got the coach home. I have a single picture of the Eiffel Tower, taken out of the coach window. Hopefully we'll have time to actually climb it this time!

These have taken an entire day to upload (literally 25 hours) but they're finally done. Here are the videos I took on Sunday, from Dress Circle so not too close and I apologise for some of my singing in the background but I've done a playlist with them all in order https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0ToLOBoRZ591zf4Hj86ALHFNHVpnUjIROnly missing the first song and a couple at the end where I was stood up and dancing so videoing became difficult. It was a fab gig and great to meet all the MFCers before, I would write more but I need to go to bed! I may be back tomorrow with a bit more of a report. Enjoy the videos!