Fan Bugs Elton John For Concert Tickets

Those Canadians are a strange lot, and they evidently love their Elton John more than seems natural:

An Elton John fan collected 38,000 grasshoppers to win concert tickets for a performance Friday (August 30) in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Brandy Elliot went into action after local radio station Z-99 announced the contest, which awarded a pair of seats to the show to the collector of the most grasshoppers in two days.

Elliott set up five-foot nets made out of window bug-screens and plastic tubing and recruited her roommate and some nephews and nieces to ride in the back of a large pick-up truck and help with the collection.

“I had started on Friday by hand initially, and just put them in a bucket, but then I thought this is ridiculous–I can’t get this many grasshoppers,” she told Reuters. “We drove in the ditches and stirred up the grasshoppers and they all just flew into the nets. As soon you touch the grass they fly up. It was unbelievable.””

Over a 10-hour period, Elliot’s team stuffed two large garbage bags, an oversized bucket, and several used detergent containers all full of grasshoppers. The bugs aren’t difficult to find, because of the Canadian provinces’ current drought. The Saskatchewan province is also known for large wheat fields and annual invasions of grasshoppers.

“I knew I was grossed-out and honestly, every night I went to bed, all I could think about was grasshoppers–and just bags and bags of grasshoppers,” Elliot said. “All I kept thinking is, ‘is this enough?'”

Elliott was one of more than 100 contestants for tickets to the show and beat her closest competitor by some 6,000 grasshoppers. She’s taking her helpful roommate with her to the concert, which sold out all 13,000 tickets within 90 minutes last month.