Dallas One Direction Fans Hold Candlelight Memorial for Liam Payne

Last week, pop artist and One Direction member Liam Payne died at the age of 31 after falling from a balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Grieving “Directioners” worldwide have been taking to social media and the streets to pay tribute to the singer. One such memorial was held at White Rock Lake in Dallas on Sunday.

“The news about Liam has been devastating in so many ways, and I saw the memorials announced all over the world,” says Monse Feria, a Directioner since 2012. “The fandom’s always been good at letting the band know how much we love and care about them, so when I realized I couldn’t find anything in Dallas, I decided to create a small poster myself and see if anyone showed up.”

According to Feria, over 100 Directioners showed up to Boy Scout Hill for the memorial after she posted her flier on Reddit. Fans attached photos, balloons and letters to a tree at the summit of the hill and placed candles at the tree’s base. A lantern was released into the sky in Payne's memory.
“I was amazed at the amount of people who actually came,” Feria says. “The memorial grew bigger and bigger throughout the night, and suddenly I was surrounded by people who understood and felt what I had been feeling.”

Despite the sorrowful tone of the event, Feria says some cloud formations have been providing hope to fans in Dallas and beyond.

“Liam had a tattoo of four arrows representing his band members, and people all over the world have been seeing clouds with these arrow form,” she says.

Memorials in London, New York, Chicago, Nashville and Buenos Aires have drawn hundreds and given fans the opportunity to cry, sing and honor Payne among like-minded people.

“It’s a weird feeling and hard to explain, grieving someone who you personally didn’t know,” says Feria. “It felt like we did know him, from all those years of being part of this fandom and this community. It was great to see how big we still are.”