ABC57's Jena Stopczynski fills seats at 58th ACM Awards

Pardon me, Nicole Kidman!

An hour into the 58^th Academy of Country Music Awards show, I found myself saying that. Definitely in my head, maybe not aloud. I almost walked right into her.

I was a seatfiller for the ACM's and rounding the corner past the stage to get to my third seat assignment of the night, when, as if appearing out of a dream, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban walked right in my path.

Nicole stopped in her tracks to wave hello to fans screaming their names, snapping photos and waving frantically to get their attention. I wonder how many of those photos I made it into! If you see one floating around, let me know.

This wasn't my first close encounter of the night. I started the show seated directly behind Tyler Hubbard, former singer for Florida Georgia Line, a few rows back center stage. He chatted with members of Old Dominion while his arm was around his beautifully dressed wife.

 A camera flash goes off a few rows ahead to the left, and there I see Luke Combs and Hardy sharing laughs, excited for the fun night ahead.

Amid the chaos of seatfillers filling and falling away, Bobby Bones takes the stage to start the countdown to the live broadcast. I'm lucky enough to still be sitting, staring at the back of Tyler's head. My sparkly boots glistening in the production lights along the aisle.

A guitar sounds stage right and there, opening the show, was Keith Urban. I am totally and absolutely lost in the moment as I feel a tap on my shoulder. The tap I dreaded! I was being booted. The owner of my seat had arrived in her glorious gold ballgown.

The seatfillers were dropping like flies.

I returned to find a bunch of us collecting in the holding area behind the production stage, frantically trying to fi

nd another way to be pulled out to more seats. I attended a lot of rodeos when I lived in Texas, and this felt all-too familiar to the bulls in the shoots.

This is when the "was this worth it?" feeling kicked in. I was determined to get back out there.

Minutes later a production angel arrived and pulled me again! This led to my fateful trip with Nicole and Keith. They weren't the only ones. I brushed shoulders with Kane Brown, and I was able to see Garth Brooks taking photos with fans after every trip off stage. I saw Ed Sheeran and Luke Combs perform their new song, and I saw Dak Prescott, Tanya Tucker, Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll, Dolly Parton… the list just goes on.

It didn't matter that the only photos I was allowed to get were at the end, and it didn't matter that I didn't sit in the same seat the entire time. The experience was incredible!

So, you might ask how I did this. The truth is, well, I literally won the lottery to fill seats.

Seatfillers play important roles for productions of live shows, so there are no "holes" visible to the people watching at home. It would be embarrassing for Chris Stapleton to be announced as the winner of an award and have an empty seat next to him, right?

I signed up at seafillersandmore.com. I went through a submission process, uploaded a photo of myself, and a letter for why I wanted to do this, etc. They send emails whenever there is a new event they need to fill. If you want to do it, you can enter your submission. If not, do nothing!

And if you're lucky...you might just get to run into Nicole Kidman.