Walking into the arena, all I saw was the bright and open lobby screaming ‘New York City’. When an artist has made it to the Madison Square Garden venue, you know they’ve made it. This iconic spot has had hundreds of renowned performers walk through its doors, with Ariana Grande becoming the newest addition to the venue’s history. Friday, March 20th was her first time headlining at the Garden, so needless to say it was an unforgettable night.

Her show opened with Rixton, a new band from England signed to the same label as Grande, pepping up the crowd for the night ahead. The turnaround from the band to the artist was pretty quick, usually taking a long time at other concerts. Grande opened her show with the radio hit “Bang Bang”. Lasers bounced from wall to wall while a handful of energetic back up dancers twirled behind her.

Her show was short, about an hour and a half. When she closed with the popular hit, “Problem”, the crowd went wild. Confetti came bursting out of cannons and came falling from the ceiling onto the audience. After her final bow, she disappeared into the floor on a lowering platform.

My favorite aspect of the concert was the glowing cat ears. Grande’s trademark is wearing cat ears in her hair, so at the show they sold glowing cat ears that changed colors. I didn’t notice though until the lights when down that the ears lit up in sync with the music. When the drums hit the beat, all the cat ears in the arena would change colors together. Or they would change in groups or light up in all different colors but still have uniformity. I have never seen anything like that at a concert before, so Grande earned major points in my book for that one.

All in all, Grande held her own at MSG and proved that she has definitely made it in the industry. Walking out of the venue, I heard countless people raving about how much they enjoyed the show and how much they loved her. The only thing that would have made the concert better was a special guest appearance. Usually in New York City at MSG, artists will bring other artists to perform with them. Grande has several songs with other singers that could have come for the show. I was looking forward to seeing a surprise guest with a couple of her songs but sadly no one came out.

Ariana Grande may be newer to the music industry, but she shows that she has matured immensely since her days as Cat from “Victorious” and “Sam and Cat”, two shows she previously stared in on Nickelodeon. Grande has the charisma to take over the world, and is on her way to make that goal into a reality.