Being a One Direction fan takes not only a love of their music, but time, money, and energy. Over the past four years, One Direction have become the biggest band in the world, not only due to their talent and re-branding of the boy band genre, but also due to their enormous fan base made up of enthusiastic and loyal fans, who are mostly teenage girls. While their fans have not only bought their albums and tickets to their concerts, they also track the bands every move on Twitter in the form of update accounts, as a way of keeping up with the members whereabouts as well as any news on their albums and future tour dates. Their dedication also comes in another form: following the band on tour as they travel the globe. In addition to teenage girls loving the group’s music, the band also has a large adult following, and this age group is just as passionate about One Direction as the younger fans are.
Last year, a loyal fan from California named Kate Sandeen decided to take on the task of following the band on tour as they traveled throughout the US to support their album Midnight Memories on their Where We Are stadium tour. At the end of the tour, Sandeen had attended twenty-four shows. Along the way, Kate met five fans named Jenny, Alexandra, Taylor, Ashley and Emma, whose ages range from nineteen to twenty-nine, and decided to make a film about their adventures called The Tour Diaries, as they follow the bands upcoming 2015 tour On The Road Again. As they tell their story of life on the road, they also want to make the film feel as if the fans are right there experiencing everything with them. As they travel, the friends plan to interview fans and see how One Direction has inspired them and what the band means to them.
They plan to attend the entire US leg of the tour (with more dates possibly being announced), as well as Canada, the UK, and Ireland, and they are also hoping to add other European countries and Australia as well. In order to fund the movie, as well as a portion of their travels, Sandeen has set up an Indiegogo page in order to crowd fund for the film. They are hoping to raise $10,000; however they have made it clear that that they will not be using any of the donated funds for tickets to the shows that they will be attending. They are also looking for sponsors and to get One Direction involved.
As the film is being made, the group will be posting Youtube video updates so that fans know what’s going on as well as keeping everyone up to date with the movie’s progress. The Tour Diaries film will begin shooting in 2015.
On The Road Again begins on February 7th in Sydney, Australia.
Isn’t this illegal? How are they using One Direction footage without getting copyright approval? Also, why on earth would fans pay for someone else to go to a concert when they could just experience it themselves? Last year, these same girls tried to get people to give them money to follow the WWA Tour. This is sketchy af.
Hello,
As far as I know, Kate and the group aren’t using any copyrighted footage in their film, and I never heard anything about them asking fans for money when they followed WWA, as the concept of the movie hadn’t even been brought to the table. I spoke to Kate through e-mail when I was writing the feature, and they made it clear that they will not be using any of the donated money for the purchase of concert tickets. Also, as for fans experiencing the concerts themselves, not every fan can afford tickets to see the band play, let alone follow them for a good portion of the tour. They wanted to make the movie to document things through a fans perspective. I thought the idea behind the movie was neat, so I decided to feature it. It doesn’t sound sketchy to me.
-Lauren