spreading jam

On Sunday, Jam took a small group of Bloggers (and their plus ones) to the O2 Arena for an exclusive performance of the X-Factor tour, courtesy of The Sun’s buzz magazine.

In November 2010, The Sun ran an X-Factor promotion to reward their readers and give them the opportunity to watch an exclusive performance of the X-Factor Tour. For this, they bought out the O2 Arena for the afternoon, and in doing so became the first national newspaper to fill out an arena with their readers, for an event like this!

As the weekend TV and entertainment supplement for the Sun, buzz magazine has close ties with the X-Factor, and ran a lot of X-Factor content, and what better way to reward their X-Factor bloggers, than to take them along for the ride? So, we had a box, we had refreshments and come 2:30 – we had an arena filled with screaming fans, and we couldn’t help but get involved! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

Before the show, the bloggers – and lucky Jammers, Aston and Mel – were escorted to the VIP lounge for a meet-and-greet with the X-Factor stars and a host of other ‘celebs’ – including Harry ‘Shut Up!’ Derbridge from ITV’s The Only Way is Essex, Katie Price & the Kids and ‘Enders legend Patsy Palmer – who Tesco Mary was completely flabbergasted to meet! Photographic evidence below…

Mary meets Patsy Palmer, and Mel gets snapped with Matt Cardle.

Aiden talks to bloggers whilst Aston has his picture taken with Mary.

At 1:30, the arena doors opened and the 14,000 Sun readers (and the remaining Jam delegates) had only one direction – pardon the pun – and that was straight for the gates! With queues at the merchandise stands heaving, the buzz was electric, and as a first timer to the O2 Arena – I still remember that giant body you could walk through, but that was so 2000 – I was suitably impressed with the entire set up!

We soon settled down in the Gaucho suite, the Sun’s buzz magazine had provided a wonderful spread of refreshments, and with a fantastic view to boot, we knew we were all in for a treat! So from the dizzying heights of our box, we watched as fans filled the arena, foam fingers held aloft, and waited with much anticipation for 2:30 to arrive!

The Bloggers settle in to the Gaucho suite.

Joanna Lim from ThrongTV checks out the view.

It soon did, and Cher Lloyd took to the stage with her version of the Clapping Song, and with notable performances from One Direction, Rebecca Ferguson and Matt Cardle to follow – the entertainment was fantastic, and in my opinion, much improved from the televised live shows.

Cher Lloyd opens the show.

Winner Matt Cardle wows audience.

There were a few sore throats come Monday morning, but all in all – totally worth it! The whole afternoon was fantastic and every one here at Jam would love to thank Unreality TV‘s Lisa McGarry, Digital Spy‘s Catriona Wightman, ThrongTV‘s Joanna Lim, Music Room‘s Menho Donoghue, TellyMix‘s Josh Darvill, Mr Paparazzi‘s Candi Kays and Entertainment Wise‘s Holly Frith for attending the event – and we really hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did!

And with the bottle neck that was North Greenwich station after the show, it was only fair that we should settle down in one of the O2’s many bars afterwards to avoid the queue – and have a review! (Read: pint.)