'It just felt very heart-warming': stranger from Alberta buys ticket to Jann Arden show for Winnipeg woman
The kindness of a stranger is allowing a Winnipeg woman to see Jann Arden live when the eight-time Juno Award winner comes to town in June.
Rita Gordon, an Arden superfan, joined Twitter earlier this month, and her first tweet was about the ticket prices to Arden's show; the cheapest ticket she could find cost $131, Gordon told CBC News.
"I was just kind of outraged by that," she said, adding that she proceeded to tweet at Arden.
"It wasn't to be mean or anything, I just thought, 'Wow!'"
The tweet quickly received many responses about ticket pricing, and eventually caught the attention of Pauline Ehle in Lloydminster, Alta. — a complete stranger.
Something inside Ehle — who has seen Jann Arden six times and will see her another three times on the upcoming tour — told her to purchase the ticket, she told CBC by phone from her Alberta home.
Last Thursday, Ehle contacted Gordon asking how much the ticket cost and that she would transfer her the money.
Gordon did not reply.
"I thought she was trolling me at first," Gordon said. "Why would someone buy a concert ticket for someone? That's just a pleasure gift. That's not a need, that's a want."
But Ehle followed up, asking for her email address, with a screen shot of the ticket purchase for a seat in the fourth row attached to the message.
"It is unusual that someone would buy a concert ticket for someone they don't know, let alone someone in a different province... It just felt very heart-warming to me. It made want to pay it forward some way to someone else," Gordon said.
The exchange touched Arden herself, who retweeted the Twitter thread, and contacted both Gordon and Ehle directly.
The musician even offered to meet Ehle at an upcoming show.
"I've just peed myself," Ehle tweeted in reply.
"It means everything to me," she later told CBC News. "This whole thing has just been bizarre. It wasn't done with the intention of receiving anything."
Arden is scheduled to perform in Saskatoon after playing Winnipeg. That's where Ehle will meet her.