I wasn't sure it would actually happen again this year, but sure enough, we were invited back to KCON 19 in LA to be on three different panels. This year it was just me and Toto representing The Kpop Konverters, and despite missing our comrades, we had a fabulous time.
Every night there was a concert of sorts. The first night was Klub Kcon where they have a DJ dude doing kpop mixes while everyone dances. In between that are random performances from random popular youtube types and others, all hosted by a very flashy flamboyant and quite obnoxious drag queen. (At least this year... lol. He was funny but also... not. ) We hung out there for awhile, but left early to go back and sleep after driving all day to get there.
The next night was Kcon Rookies, where they showcased what was supposed to be 4 of our newbie groups that we are all loving on right now. One of the groups ended up not being able to come, sad sad day (there were a lot of visa issues this year, thanks to our president I think.) But the three that were there were a blast and we thoroughly enjoyed that evening. We decided to play it cool and hung out in the back of the crowd instead of stressing about getting close. ATEEZ stole the show for us.. our favorites of the year by far. A new girl group called LOONA was also very popular and a cute boy group called AB6IX also got a lot of love.
ATEEZ at Kcon Rookies
The next two nights were the big concerts and we loved every minute of them both. The second night though was especially fun when we let it loose and stood up and literally screamed our voices raw during Stray Kids and Seventeen. We also sang loudly during N. Flying's tribute to Queen and then there was the moment when the three rappers from Stray Kids (3Racha) and N. Flying sang together. I really thought I was going to die seeing that. Best thing ever.
Finale of the second concert
We had three panels, one each day of the con. They all went really well and we had a blast discussing kpop with random attendees and connecting with so many fun people. I really wish I'd taken more selfies of these connections. I always forget in the moment!
After one of our panels with our fellow panelists and attendees
In between our panels and the night concerts, we went to a couple other panels (Holland and Edwin were highlights) and seeing which groups we could encounter on the convention floor. We did fight our way in the mosh pits down there to see ATEEZ up close, and also SF9 and AB6IX. We also waited for an hour and a half to see N. Flying at the foodie booth. It was worth it. They were adorable.
AB6IX cuties
ATEEZ with Ronald McDonald getting their free fries and pics taken!
Holland's panel... he's famous for being the only kpop idol who has official come out as gay. We fell in love with him.
N.Flying boys making sandwiches.
Edwin draws horrible fan art and Toto was lucky enough to win a picture of herself!
KCON is a blast. Every year I think we won't be going again, but after this time around, i hope it truly does continue to be a yearly tradition for us. Which means I can't let the channel die so we can still be relevant and invited back, right???
We posted a ton of stuff on the channel about KCON, but this one is our overall experience vlog with little clips from all the things I mentioned.
A week before KCON was the Monsta X concert! So we flew there for that... came and went... and then a few days later we drove back for KCON. Yeah, it was a crazy couple of weeks. BUT, the Monsta X concert!
The only group now that I've seen twice. (Not counting like the few songs we saw of Seventeen at both KCONs now... I guess I've seen them twice now, but not full concerts.) So you could say this group is one of my favorites if not my favorite!
We had a struggle getting tickets for this one and ended up in the wrong place so even though we got the tickets, we didn't get the ones we wanted which meant we ended up with seats quite far back. Sadness.
So while that was a true disappointment to deal with it when it come right down to the day, it was still an amazing awesome concert and seeing these amazing awesome guys is just... AMAZING! LOL! And it was so fun to see the change in them over the year. Last time they were cool and had a great stage presences... but this time that was ratcheted up several notches. Their ease on stage and ability to work the crowd was EVEN BETTER than last time.
Also last time, they had an interpreter and hardly spoke any English except for I.M who knows it quite well. THIS TIME, they all spoke English very confidently and it was awesome. I love seeing them trying to learn to hard just so they can communicate better with us. They all said their ending comments in English (we are so sad to not have captured on video both I.M's and Minhyuk's thoughts) except for Jooheon who had something so important to say he wanted to make sure and say it right, and then he brought us all to tears with his words. Gah. They killed us in the end there!
They cracked down on video taking this year, but we still snuck in a bit. However, for the most part, we just put the phones away and enjoyed. But here's our vlog of the experience and a few pictures:
One of the best things about concerts is meeting up with people we've befriended from other events or talked to online, and meeting new friends, and finding people who love our channel! It's so fun! Dang but I wish that LA was closer. Or that kpop groups would decide that oh, lets say, Salt Lake, would be a great city to try! :)
It's been awhile since I posted here in the poor neglected blog. Part of the reason is that since August started it's been non-stop kpopping around here and lots of fun stuff to edit for our vlogs on the YouTube channel.
Perhaps the biggest event we participated in is KCON held at the LA Convention Center (and concerts at the Staples Center next door). This is just like Comic Con for those of you familiar with that...three days of panels and stages and appearances and vendors and workshops.... only with all Korean pop culture stuff. And featuring two awesome concerts on two of the nights ( and a sort of club concert on the other night.) It's an awesome event for those of us who are in love with all things Korean pop culture.
A couple of years when I first got into this, I learned that this event existed and thought... dang that's cool. And I watched the live stream of the concerts online. It was so fun and I thought, I really would like to go!
The next year, I found myself there, right up next to the gate on the floor as close as one can get to the artists on stage. And I thought... dang how crazy is this?!
This year I found myself going again, but this time all expenses paid by the company in charge, as a special guest and being featured on two different panels! (It was supposed to be three but one got cancelled.)
Life is so weird!!! And sometimes so awesome that you can't ever predict anything!
Anyway, it was a fabulous time filled with close up brushes with some of our favorite (and new favorites) bands, hanging out behind the scenes with YouTubers a million times more famous than us, eating Korean street food, making new friends with those on the panels with us, getting to talk to fans that are parents and/or old fans like me, and then finally going to the concerts and seeing so many awesome performances. I can't even describe how much fun these concerts are!
So, if you are interested in what our life was like for those few days, or want to see what the panels were like, or who we fell in love with this time, or get a little taste of the concerts, or.. just see what KCON is all about, here are the vlogs and clips we put together:
Day One:
Day Two:
Day Three:
It's hard to believe it's over again for another year. Can't wait to see what next year brings!
We fell in love with the Korean boy band Up10tion nearly two years ago. They are a less well known band mostly because they come from a smaller entertainment company. But we fell hard for them and have been promoting them ever since.
We all thought they would never be "big" enough to come on a tour in the US. We figured we'd never see them live. But then suddenly one day, their tour was announced. It was also announced they would do a fan sign and hi touch and pictures and all sorts of extra fun things. It didn't matter what else was going on in our lives, or whether we were out of kpop fun money or not... we knew we'd be going.
Buying tickets was actually a fun experience this time too! The theater we chose to go to was very small, but all seated (no mosh pit) and so when we bought tickets, the seats all popped up and we just choose where we wanted to be and bam, we had them! Just like you do when you reserve seats at the movies! why can't all concerts be this easy! The joy of loving a small less popular group!
Anyway. We had the VVIP package which meant we had up close seats, we got a the CD which was to be signed by them all at the event, the group photo and the hi touch! (high fiving them all!) We also got, along with all the fans, the chance to buy photo ops (think comic con) of fun little tiny polaroid pictures with as many of them individually as we could afford! We could not WAIT!
Finally the day came. Toto and I flew to San Jose that evening, hoping to meet Megs there at the airport, but she did not luck out to get on the stand by flight we wanted, and so she had to wait for the next plane and come a few hours later. Toto and I got a Lyft to the hotel and spent the evening walking around downtown San Jose and getting an ice cream. Megs arrived at 12:30 am and we tried to sleep!
Next day, concert day! We hung out at the hotel filming things for our channel and then we went out to walk around and hang out with the other fans who were slowly accumulating at the gates of the theater. We sat there while Megs finished writing her cards to the boys (we were told we couldn't give them presents, but could give them cards, so why not??) And we hoped that we might see the boys when they arrived at the venue.
We left our spot for a moment to get Subway down the street and as we were coming back, we ended up following a small little cute Asian boy as we crossed the street. Toto was all.. "that's Jinhoo, I know it!" I was like, no way. That's not him! Are you sure? She was like, totally sure. But man.. he looked so NORMAL!
But sure enough, he walked right into the back stage area and we followed him as we came back to our spot. Jinhoo, leader and oldest dude in Up10tion. We just followed him across the street, like it was totally normal.
So we sat there and then just a few minutes later Toto says.... ah!!! There's Gyujin... he's coming across the street now too! So we looked and sure enough, here comes another cute Asian boy... calmly walking across the street, down the sidewalk, right in front of us and into the back stage door. He grinned at us and waved. Probably because Toto had his name and face on her headband! Yes, he is her favorite of all the ten and we were lucky enough to see him arrive in all his normalness.
Well, after that excitement, we had to go back to the hotel (which was just next door to the theater. We couldn't get closer seriously.) and get ready. After which, we came back and joined the fairly large line that had now formed. It's a good thing we got there when we did because they didn't have enough CDs and ran out just after we got ours. Sheesh. That was close.
We waited a long time. Several hours. But finally, the boys were ready. They had all arrived by then and were transforming from the normal boys we saw walking across the street, to the amazing kpop idols they are.
We watched them make their appearance and sit, all lined up in order of age, at the table and then we got to file past them with our CDs which they signed, while saying our name, shaking our hands and telling us thanks. I had planned to say Korean something or other to them, but I couldn't even make English come out, let alone Korean. They were breathtaking. Seriously. Beautiful people. Truly beautiful. And seeing them up close and in real life like that after watching them on a screen... it's so crazy sureal. I have no words.
Anyway, after all the anxiety of this exact moment, it was over SO FAST! I did say "nice to meet you" in Korean to Wei, and I think I said, "My name is Suey" in Korean to Hwanhee... so I did manage that much. All the rest, I just said.. thanks for coming, so happy you are here, can't wait for the concert and I have no idea what else. One of them asked... how are you and i said nervous. I'm not sure he understood me, but I do know that they think it's crazy to be nervous though... lol. Like why? Xiao was the last one and since Toto was being held up by Gyujin, (who was making eyes at her because she had his face on her head, and he was all "You... earlier!" while pointing to the street,) I was able to say a little more to Xiao and i told him good luck at the concert and that I was so excited... he just nodded, probably not understanding a word... but then the staff ushered me away and told me to get out of there. GAH.
Then we got in line and this time we filed by them all, giving them all a hearty high five and/or hand clasp depending on what they did. And then we stood behind them while they sat down and we got a group picture. After which we were ushered into the theater to wait for the concert.
Here are the group pictures! Toto (bottom pic) was in a different group so she could be behind Gyujin! The guys, from left to right in order from youngest to oldest are:
Man, we were so hype after that. Toto said that Gyujin stopped her and held her hand instead of simply doing the fast high five... and then he said. "I love you!" So she was swooning all over the place!
The theater was so small and we were so close it was hard to believe. Think smaller than a high school auditorium. We were on the second row in the middle. We were so excited and filmed some stuff and even got the whole audience to say hi to our phone and scream for Up10tion. It was awesome. Except for the fact that we lost connection half way into it!
Anyway, we didn't wait long before the concert started and then we had the best two hours ever! Seeing them dance so up close was AMAZING! And sing and smile and smirk and flirt and speaking English as best they could. Amazing. They had no interpreters... they just had practiced familiar sayings and had a little teleprompting but that's it. They did a Q and A at one point and then later they did charades where they acted out a key California/San Jose phrase and we had to guess. It was hilarious! They interacted with us as if we were all just gathered in a living room as friends hanging out and playing. Then they'd get up and sing and dance for us. Amazing.
Above: clips from the concert
Below: the full clip of Hwanhee trying to get us to guess "Yosemite National Park" in the game of charades and all the other boys joined in to "help."
It was over too soon, that's for sure. But we loved seeing all our favorite songs and all the eye contact and seeing their goofs along with their crazy awesomeness.. so much fun.
Sigh. Then afterwards, we all lined up outside to wait for our turn to get an individual picture with them. The polaroid pics! Pick a Pose they called it! We had prebought our tickets for this, so we ended up not having to wait in the line. We had 10 pictures to share between us. I took one, Megs took four and Toto took five. We had to choose our boys and our pose. Of course, Toto did ALL THREE with cute Gyujin. She also took one with Bitto and Xiao. Megs choose Sunyoul, Kuhn, Xiao and Wei. And I took my one with Wei. (If we'd had more, I would have also done Hwanhee and Kogyeol. But dang. They are all the best!)
After it was over, we didn't want to leave. We hoovered for awhile watching them take pictures with everyone and seeing how they interacted. Some of them are so shy and awkward! Some of them so confident and not caring about the language barrier or anything. Wei is very outgoing and funny. Gyujin continued to be cute with Toto and held her hand the whole time they did the poses, and he also went "off script" and did his funny winky face with Toto when she asked him if it was okay. Bitto patted Toto on the head as she walked away. I'm sure he thought she was the cutest little thing! Megs says she can't forget the feeling of Xiao's cheek next to hers. And she was so blown away by the beautifulness of Kuhn and his manly manliness that made her actual feel small next to him! We stood there and relived it all and did not want to leave them!
Toto and Gyujin
Megs and Xiao
Suey and Wei
But we did. Still we hoovered outside the gate until everyone else had dispersed and the boys had gone in to change. But we knew they had to come out to walk back to their hotel... and so we stayed. Along with a few other die hards.. and so when they did appear, we watched them walk out, transformed back to their normal boy-ness, in their sweats and jeans, with all their stuff and entourage, and they walked past us and said bye and thanks one last time. They walked to their hotel which was right across the street from ours. And then, they were gone.
We got something to eat (it was nearly 1 am by now) and filmed ourselves gushing about it, then went back to the hotel and talked more while looking at all the footage and pics we took. Guys, it's really hard to come down after a concert. It took us awhile!
Finally we slept and then went home the next day. And now it's as if it was all a dream. Such a good thing we have pictures to prove that it happened! Best concert to date! Not sure there will be one to top it.
Here's the vlog which details everything I've just written. Including Gyujin walking by at 3:50 in!
Super Junior's D and E Donghae and Eunhyuk And the whole reason we went to KCON!
Before I can report on anything trip related, I have to report on KCON, which happened about a week and half before the big trip, which seems like forever ago, back in mid August!
KCON is a convention of all things Korean pop culture related. It's just like Comic Con only Korean stuff. And there are concerts, which Comic Con does NOT have. :) It's held in cities all over the world, here in the US it's at New York and LA. Last year we were just getting into this stuff when it happened, but we watched the live stream of the concert and thought wow, that looks pretty fun. I saw the people with their faces pressed right up to the barrier on the floor of the concert and thought they must be crazy die hards! Yeah.
Well, so a year goes by and we have to decide, are we going? Or are we not. When they announced that VIXX would be there, I ws in. When they announced D and E from Super Junior would be there, I was ALL in and my sister Megs who said no way could she go... suddenly figured out how to go! Yeah.
So ticket day comes and it took us 45 minutes to even get in the site, and then no tickets were available. But then Mr. Stuey, who always seems to have a knack for the ticket buying thing, clicked the GA button (we were trying to get seats) and there were tickets available if we were willing to do GA... basically, the mosh pit. And so, we did it.
The week arrives. I reserved an airbnb house that sleeps like 10 people, and we took an entire Surburban full of friends, and drove the 11 hours to LA. It was fun since we could blast the kpop music all the way and NO ONE CARED!!
Friday morning and the first day of the convention dawned. We found our way to the convention center and got in line to be let into the event. We had hours to wait, but that time was spent haggling for audiences and high touches with all the bands. See, with your concert ticket, you are awarded certain passes, and if you like what you get, great. If you don't, you trade with each other or buy them off of someone. It was like a high stakes pokemon trading card game! It was insane! But we managed to trade for mostly what we wanted (of course we didn't' get any VIXX high touch, but we did have an audience!) and we even sold some of our things that we knew we couldn't use. Awesome.
Finally, they let us in and we spent the day going to panels and walking around the convention and participating in the dance off and generally having a blast. We even found Kathy our friend from home and book bloggin' buddy! In the very first panel, Toto and I answered a bunch of trivia questions and won a signed poster. Afterward, the people from Viki (who do the kdramas) approached us and asked us to be part of their video answering more trivia questions! We nailed it! (In fact, we were too boring since we actually knew the answers. Whatever.) Here's that video:
Also, we met some Youtubers that we aspire to be like and hope to be actual friendds with some day. It was so much fun and I thought, wow. If every day is like this...
Here's the video of our day one:
At the end of that day we picked up Megs from the airport so she could join us for day 2 and 3. Now the party really began!
So the first concert was Saturday night and we had GA tickets, which means, no reserved seats, which means fight for the perfect spot on the floor, which means stand in line ALL DAY LONG if you want that perfect spot. So that's what we planned to do Saturday, because we wanted to see D and E close up. (See above giffy picture!) We instantly bonded and made friends in line and saved spots for each other to go and do our audience and get food and etc.
What's an audience? Well, that's when the band comes out into the big panel room and talks for a bit, plays some games and interacts with all the adoring fans. Then, the ones with the high touch pass get to file past them and do the high five, while the rest of us watch. I thought I would die of jealousy, but it was actually quite fun just to watch the boys interact with everyone and show off all their different personalities. I loved it.
So we did that for VIXX that day, but truly spent most of the day in line. Toto had three audiences, so she went from one to the other to the other before she joined us in line. But finally we got in and BAM... guess who was right up next to the barrier! YEP! One year later and we are the die hards that I was shaking my head at the year before! We even got in a bunch of videos! See if you can see us in this one (it's very fast about 14 seconds in!)
The concert was AMAZING! Oh my word. And I thought all the other concerts we went to this past year were amazing. Well. Yeah. So Megan made a sign and Donghae saw it and came down to us. Sadly, our hands weren't accessible so he grabbed the closest one, our line buddy Jocey. Still, HE CAME DOWN! (Watch the slowmo of it here!)
And everyone else was totally amazing too. I loved it so much. Here's our recap of Day Two:
Day three was another concert in the evening, but we spent less time in line thanks to our friends who saved spots for us most of the day. We went to a couple of panels, finally meeting some youtube buddies for the first time in real life, and going to a couple other audiences. No high touches for us this time. So sad.
We had a great spot in line thanks to Jocey who pretty much didn't sleep and went from the concert the night before and got back in line around 3 am. And who said it was totally okay for us to join her when we arrived. So when we finally got let in again, we had the exact same spot up next to the stage as before. Though Megs choose to get in a more central location this time, while Toto and I stayed to the side. (you can see what I mean if you watch the video.)
BUT... it's not over yet. About a week later, after one of those official channels highlighted Megs' sign at the end of D and E's song... we woke up to the news that Eunhyuk himself screen shot her sign from that video and POSTED IT ON INSTAGRAM!!! Oh my gosh we DIED!!! And made yet aonther video about dying. If you don't watch any of these other videos, you should at least watch this one:
Guys. It was the best time ever. We had so much fun. I think KCON will definitely be in our future for years to come.
Well, I know you are all dying to know how the big anticipated event turned out. I've been saving telling you until I had videos to show. And finally, the videos are all done!
This concert was everything we imagined it to be. These boys are awesome. Beautiful, talented, amazingly... awesome. We really can't find the right adjective to describe them, or how they make us feel. (I'm talking in the plural here for all of our group that went... six of us, plus a few more we met up with!)
It was a fabulous day and fabulous weekend. We spent lots of time in lines, and we didn't even care because the lines were pretty much as fun as everything else, just talking to everyone else there that was as crazy as us!
We stood in line for three hours to get buy merch. And then later two more hours to get through security to get into the concert. Then after an hour of sitting inside waiting for it to start, we stood for 2 1/2 more hours during the concert! It was an exhausting day both physically AND emotionally!
And it was the best day ever!
Here's the video we made of the preconcert excitment, including driving to California, going out to eat with our Twitter friends, and interviewing poeple in the merch line:
Actually, we have a video of just the interviews which you can find here if you are interested.
And then the second part of our experience is the concert itself. We ended up filming more on our phones than we thought we would. "Real" cameras weren't allowed and we decided not to risk it, so we didn't even bring them in. So, all we have is the crappy stuff we got on our phones. Here's what is was like... which is mostly a lot of screaming. A LOT of screaming. And crying at the end when it was over.
Afterwards we meet up with our friends again, at midnight, at IHOP and just gushed. We filmed a bit of it and here it is:
(This also includes Megs and Ryn talking on their drive home.)
Guys. I don't know. Really, this was so much fun I can't even describe it. I wish I could find something to compare it to so that you would all understand! Anyway, here's hoping for future weekends of such joy! I can't wait to see who we get to see next!!
(P.S. If any of you book bloggers read this, and/or watch this, you might be familiar with fellow former book blogger Penelope from The Reading Fever, who has joined me (surpassed me I would even say) in the fanatic fandom that is kpop and BTS. Look for her in these videos... she's there with us!)
