KCON DAY 1
I woke up hella early after passing out sometime around 11 or 12. Unable to go back to bed, I decided to prepare for the day ahead. It was a light schedule since it was Friday. I hoped I wouldn’t have to knee and elbow my way past fans to get into an excellent position to take pictures. The trauma of 2019 is something I don’t want to do over.
Getting to the venue and getting my press badge was easy enough. After that, it was the first mission of the day, the STAYC artist engagement. The number of prestige folks I saw was what I expected. Small and dedicated. After all, the package is the price of a trip to Korea. Not all of us can be cray and ballers.
As for me? I was a plebian audience, and one of the last few people let in. I got a good spot in the back second row from the barrier. So my view wasn’t that bad. I was expecting to be much further away, to be honest. STAYC are as funny and personable as their interviews and YouTube content make them.
Sumin is also way shorter in person. I mean she’s small, but I didn’t expect her to be that small.
Their selfie MV went well. I got lots of up-close looks at all the members. They are all shorter than when you see them on video, even Yoon, who looks taller than most of the team.
After STAYC left, it was time to reposition for LIGHTSUM. I moved to the side closer to the MC since they got a lot of love in the last selfie MV.
Luckily I got a barrier spot when some girls ran off to chase a dude group exiting the con floor. My pics for LIGHTSUM were all crap, sadly. But I got way better views of the members since they also favoured the side I was on. LIGHTSUM were as they are on pictures and videos. No shock at all seeing cute idols. Well, maybe Sangah. She’s quite the beauty in person.
I believe I accomplished one of my goals for KCON. That was to get up in a selfie MV.
The last event of KCON day one was the rookie concert. There was a lot of miscommunication about this concert throughout the day. In the morning I was told we could take photos at the show. Then that was taken away.
It was also communicated that press could attend the concert. Also not true. Thank God I bought a regular ticket since I figured something like this would happen, given my experiences from 2019. The value of my press badge is what I expected it to be.
The concert itself was excellent when performances were going on. In my opinion, the MC/Game segment had moments, but it was so long and dragged the show down.
I came away impressed by LIGHTSUM the most. The fact that all of them spoke decent English was a pleasant surprise. And seeing them whoop STAYC in team arm wrestling in three seconds was hilarious. I guess the dude groups were ok too. They were at least entertaining. But to show total transparency, neither was my cup of tea.
I mentioned in my (G)I-DLE concert review that I would have to think about doing a general admission concert again. Well, I got to sit down before and during this one. And I wasn’t dying of heat and dehydration. So I would consider this a better experience.
