The golden circle was the area directly in front of the stage, could hold a few hundred people easily. I was in the one at Manchester. What happened was that we were allowed in earlier than the general admission tickets, and we had a wrist-band to get in and out of the circle (to go to the toilet, get drinks etc). There was a seperate queue for fanclub members, and they got in earlier than us, so if they were fanclub members with GC tickets they could run in and get front row. The front 3 or 4 rows were probably mostly fanclub members. I was about 10 rows back from the stage, not being a fanclub member.