Everything was in full swing backstage, the sound of drums filled the hallways and people were busily going about their jobs. I was loading boxes of merch out of the van. They weren’t heavy, but walking back and forth was starting to tire me out. I grabbed a box out of the back hastily. I was too rough with it, causing the bottom to fall through and littering its contents all over the floor. I huffed, swore under my breath and bent down to collect it. A pair of beat up vans appeared in front of me. The guy they belonged to bent down and began to pile up the shirts in front of me.
I smiled shyly.
“Thankyou” he looked up from the floor, meeting my gaze and smiled sweetly back. That’s when I recognised him. It was All Time Low’s manager, Matt.
“Your welcome. One of those days?”
“It’s looking that way, huh?” I stood up, holding the merch in my arms. Matt handed me the neat pile he had collected.
“I’m Matt by the way, tour manager extraordinaire” He grinned, holding out his hand. I had to resist the urge to say ‘I know’. I juggled the shirts I was holding so I could shake his hand.
“Violet, merch girl” I couldn’t think of anything clever to say, and usually things like that sound better in my head.
“Hey Violet, good to meet you. I’d better run, but I’ll see you tonight for the mixer drinks?”
“You sure will. Just catch me early on; it won’t be long before you’ll have to peel me off the floor.”
“Party girl huh? That’s what we like to hear!” he called back at me as he walked away. I smiled to myself as I carried the merch inside the venue, what a nice guy. I passed Ben on my way to the merch tables. We called to each other as we rushed past.
“Need any help Vi?”
“Sure, there’s more boxes in the van. Thanks dude!”
I got to our merch table and set the T-shirts down, folding them into neat piles according to size and design. Not that they’d stay neat for long. Ben delivered the rest of the boxes to me and rushed off to finish what he was doing. I was pinning some shirts to the display board when I heard the bands returning from their adventures. This was All Time Low’s headline tour, the crew I belonged to was with the supporting band Let Me Go and it was the first time we’d all been to the states. The two bands seemed to be getting like a house on fire; they sauntered in joking with each other.
The boys from Let Me Go said hello as they passed through, their British accents easily recognisable.
“Boards looking good Vi” Joe (lead guitarist) appeared from nowhere behind me, making me jump and push a pin through my skin.
“FUCK!” I pulled the pin out of the end of my finger, putting it in my mouth. Joe just laughed. I grimaced at him.
“What’s so funny, people aren’t gunna buy blood stained merch y’know”
“But being the amazing merch girl you are, you could still sell them” He winked at me. It was a pathetic excuse for laughing and a blatant suck up, but I couldn’t help a small smile. I rolled my eyes at him at carried on doing what I was paid to do.

The show was amazing, both bands killed it. Let Me Go got a much better response from the crowd than they were expecting and obviously the crowd noise during All Time Low’s set was deafening. The night went pretty smoothly, I didn’t get any trouble whilst at the merch stand and we sold a fair amount of stock too. It was so good to see people walking round with the bands merch on, they so deserved it. I packed up the remaining stock back into its boxes with some help for Rhys (Drummer) and then I headed back to the tour bus to get ready for drinks. I had no idea what to expect, but it was going to get messy.