KCON DAY 3
Day three was easy as all the crazier fandoms had gathered to cause havoc on the convention floor. Whatever I wanted to see regarding LOONA, Kep1er and WJSN were optional unless I wanted to fight it out with the stans again.
When I cruised the con floor, many fans were already camped out. So with a chance opportunity to do a hi-touch with WJSN dropping in my lap, everything else was scratched on my list.
WJSN are some funny women whose artist engagement went by the fastest of these events I have attended at the convention. It was that fun.
The whole “hi-touch” experience after was non-contact because of COVID. So WJSN stood behind plexiglass barriers, and you walked by them and waved in an orderly and quick manner. Unlike (G)I-DLE in Seattle, I slowed at my faves like Soobin, Yeorum, Exy and Eunseo, ignoring the instructions to keep moving. I wanted to enjoy looking at WJSN like zoo animals. When will I ever get to do this again?
Was this waving event worth the $75 I paid some random woman on Saturday night for the ticket? I don’t think it was. If anything, it was a premium to get a closer view of the stage and quickly get ushered away from idols you will probably never be within arms-length distance of again. If there were no pandemic protocol and physical hi-touch allowed? Then yes, it would have been worth the price of admission.
With that over, I went to the Jeff Benjamin panel/workshop. It felt more like a fan club or appreciation society rather than something educational. A few people walked out of mid-session; I should have followed them. However, I think I learned maybe two semi-valuable pieces of information from his presentation, so I guess it wasn’t a complete waste of time. I still left feeling underwhelmed, hoping that I would gain more insight into K-Pop journalism to help further my ambitions. It was not to be. But that also screwed me for what I wanted to do next.
I wanted to do the WJSN Dawon panel, but the line for that was beyond the room’s capacity. I could not use press credentials to secure a spot in the room because security said some other press person ruined it for the rest of us by sneaking into a panel on day two.
So I went back to my hotel to take a nap. Then it was back to the Crypt for the concert.
Unlike on night one, I went to the Crypt early because I wanted to eat before the madness. So I picked the second cheapest stadium food near my section. Ten chicken nuggets and a sprite cost me a whopping $16. Wow.
After taking down the nuggets, it was an hour’s wait until the concert. The arena filled up quickly and the energy built up differently than the previous night. It was probably all the rabid NCT DREAM fans.
Night two, for me, was about the girl groups. STAYC only performed two songs, sadly, and my cell phone storage maxed out when they went into Beautiful Monster. Sadness. I managed to free up some space to get some of RUN2U and spent time during the dude group sets freeing up storage to be able to record smaller bits of video if needed.
The real tragedy of night two was the lack of LOONA and WJSN songs. What they performed felt more like an appetizer compared to what the girl groups on night one did.
However, I guess NMIXX made up for it by performing their two songs, a cover of Aju Nice and a Decalcomanie cover with LOONA. Even though I’m not too fond of NMIXX’s style of music, they are talented performers. So I’ll give them that.
NCT DREAM brought the heat and was a feel-good ending to the second night of KCON concerts. Still not enough LOONA & WJSN for my tastes. Even with that minor complaint, it was another excellent show.
