Harry Styles is set to play at Old Trafford Cricket Ground over two nights this week with an estimated 74,000 fans on Wednesday and Thursday as he continues his Love on Tour stadium tour.
Due to the ex-One Directioners popularity, the merchandise stands have already opened at the cricket ground a day early and fans of Harry are already camping out in anticipation of the star’s arrival. He is not due on stage until Wednesday night at 8.45pm and yet, the crowds are already beginning to throng around the stadium.
As with Louis Tomlinson’s debut tour in April, some fans have camped out the be at the front of the barrier, despite having early access tickets to the show.
Read more: Harry Styles at Emirates Old Trafford - stage times, support, setlist, tickets and parking
The merchandise available includes keyrings, tote bags and t-shirts. Ranging in price from £10 for a poster up to £65 for a hoodie. The stand opened today at midday and is expected to get a lot busier throughout the evening.
The Radtky family travelled for 25-and-a-half hours from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to be here for the Thursday show.
Mum Melissa, 53, explained why they travelled all this way. She said: “It was cheaper to come to this show. We tried to get tickets in Chicago and the starting price was £500.
“It was cheaper to fly here than to go to Chicago.”
Melissa’s daughter, Charlie, 18, told the M.E.N that Harry Styles is her favourite artist and there is one song she’s looking forward to above the rest.
She said: “Matilda, that song will make me cry.”
Meanwhile, Alex’s, 15, favourite artist is Mitski who is opening for Harry at this show. He said: “My favourite artist is Mitski, his opener, I’m definitely going to start crying when Mitski comes on.”
Sophie Petty, Rebecca Fuller, and Darcey Eastell are camping out for both shows from tonight. They queued for merchandise for nearly two hours.
Rebecca, 21 from Leeds, said: “We’re going to both shows, there’s an after party at a different venue so we’ll have to get up early to get in the queue on Thursday."
Darcey, also 21 and from Leeds added: “I’m really glad they did the merch a day early, I don’t have to queue again in there.”
Sophie, 18 from Bradford, revealed they had forked out £200 each for early entry to each show and added: “If we talk about how much we’ve spent total, it would be in the thousands.”
Another fan, who asked not to be named, said that she’d spent around £15,000 following Harry on tour and had 10 shows in America booked.
Ellie Street and Emily Houghton, both 19 year-old students in Liverpool, debated camping out to be the first in line at the barriers. However, they were put off by Old Trafford Cricket Ground’s social media, which advised against it.
Instead, they queued today for an hour and 15 minutes to get some of the Love on Tour 2022 merchandise and both have early access tickets.
Despite Harry not being scheduled to make his appearance until 8.45pm, they are planning on joining the entry queue at around 1pm.
Emily said: “If there was a place on the site where you could camp, we would have, we did debate it. I’d camp all day for him.
Ellie added: He’s just unreal. I don’t even know how to put it into words, we’ve grown up with him. We’ve both said that if we met him, we’d pass out.”
Between them, Ellie and Emily spent £165 on merchandise.
Rheanna Morton, 26 from Coventry booked four days off from her work as a doctor to be in Manchester for the shows. She arrived in the queue wearing a custom-made Harry Styles cowboy hat and explained: “There’s a woman on TikTok, she does the cowboy hats, Funky Junky Hats.
“I’ll wear it in the crowd, but I’ll put it around my neck so it doesn’t spoil anyone’s view.”
Rheanna queued for over an hour, arriving at the cricket ground at midday and getting to the front of the line at around 1.15pm.
Izzy Gibson, 16, and her mum Alison travelled from Goole in East Yorkshire to buy merchandise today. Izzy has tickets for both shows and mum will be joining her on Thursday.
They were not able to stay in Manchester between the shows as Izzy has had a GCSE exam today and has another tomorrow before the show. She said: “I’m obsessed with him. I want to get in there as soon as I can tomorrow, so it makes sense to buy it all now.
“I’ve come straight from my GCSE exam, I got changed in the car.
“I’ve got another GCSE tomorrow, I’ll come straight from the exam to the show. I’m coming on Thursday too.”
Between them, Alison and Izzy spent £405 on merchandise, and Alison exclaimed: “It’s not just for us!”
She then explained that she was happy to see her daughter so happy, saying: “The pleasure she gets from it is worth it.”
For Elsa Maunganidze, 19, from Preston, tomorrow's show will be her first ever concert. She is attending with her brother's girlfriend, Lauryn Beagen, 21 from North Wales.
Elsa said: "I'm very excited for it, this is actually my first concert."
Lauryn, however, is a veteran One Direction fan and explained that she has already been to two One Direction shows and is seeing Harry Styles again on Saturday. She explained why they chose to queue up for merchandise a day early.
She said: "We only live an hour away so it's not far. We queued for about an hour and it just gets you excited for the show.
"I think we're going to get here at about 2 o'clock tomorrow, so not too early."
For general admission tickets, the gates do not open until 4pm.
A merchandise manager with the Harry Styles Love on Tour merchandise team told the Manchester Evening News that they expected to make around £2m in sales.
He said: “The average sale is not far off £100. People will spend every penny they’ve got, if they’ve got £200 in their bank account, they’ll spend it.
“In Glasgow, it was tipping down with rain and no one moved out the queue.”
However, if you have not been able to get down to Old Trafford today to queue for merch, there will be four merchandise sites at the shows. One at the courtyard bar, two in the pit and the trailer.
Price list of the merchandise available:
T-shirts: £30
Ring collared and cuffed t-shirts: £35
Hoodies: £60
Sweatshirts: £55
Love soup tote bag: £25
Wrap around print tote bag: £30
Keyring: £10
Poster: £10
Caps: £25
Socks: £15
