Monday, August 11, 2014

Day 49-50: Infinite That Summer Concert 2 Venue and Camping for Merchandise

My friend attended the August 9th concert so I went with her at around 3:40PM. All of the lockers were already taken (the service closes at 4PM) and it was hectic in there, like a public high school gym locker room. 
Then at 3:54PM we scouted out the merchandise area, as we were going to camp out there tonight. If you get out of Hangangjin Station (한강진역) Exit 2, then turn right to face the concert hall, and walk to the right side of the building, and the merchandise area is located between the hall and this graffiti storage container (with rivets that make for nice backrests). This photo is from around 5AM; people weren't actually camping out at 4PM yet.
At the merchandise tents, there are banners indicating the items that were sold out for the day. There were still items available (light stick, pendant, strap, beach towel, paper frame, sticker set and beach hood), so I ended up buying everything I could now instead of tomorrow morning. Also there are signs on the registers stating in Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese that there are no refunds or exchanges. But I think there is one exception. Many people were bringing their light sticks back to the tent because one of the seven lightbulbs didn't work. So anyways, first you enter the cashier tent, which accepts credit card and cash, and tell the cashier which items you want and the quantity. They have a piece of paper with the items so you can just point to them, just for clarification. The they confirm all the items you want, and print out a receipt. Then you walk to the next tent and show the worker your receipt. He then grabs all of your merchandise and uses a pen to check off each item on your receipt. My receipt indicated I paid at 4:00.47, and the tent officially closes at 4PM. But people were still trickling in behind me to make purchases. By now, workers with picket sticks indicating number ranges for standing zones stood in front of the merchandise tents, and people were starting to line up. Then I left to rest up for the long night.

At 9PM I came back again to wait in line for merchandise. That night's concert was led out at about 8:40PM, so my friend went to the back of the line then. By the time I arrived, she was still the last in line, and there were about 10 girls ahead of us. Even though the concert was already let out and many fangirls were flooding the subway station, I was surprised to still be close to the front of the line. We had the storage container backrest behind us, a fence with three garbage bags tied around for our convenience, and our large tarp underneath us. We were ready for city camping!

My friend told me that the limit per item is four, and light sticks are 10. Since this is the case, I thought we came a bit early. Little did I know...

With so much time on our hands, I decided to do some photoshoots of the Infinite banners around the concert hall at night and dawn, when it was very peaceful and no one blocked my view.
Here are signs with the Infinite logo. These stairs lead down to the locker area.
There are boards indicating that day's schedule.
The other side is the layout of the concert hall, as seen on Interpark.
The doors leading to the concert hall are also decked out in Infinite logos.
They also list all the banned actions.
Here is how the entrance to the concert hall looks like. Underneath the stairs is the ticketing office. When I came here at around 10PM, there were several people camping out in hopes of buying a canceled ticket. When I came again at around 5AM, the line went from the wall to the bottom of the staircase, around 15 people or so.
There are also beautiful banners blowing around the grounds.
At 9PM there were still makeshift vendors by the subway exit selling Infinite goods like official Man in Love and Last Romeo slogans (that my friend claimed were fake), and fan goods like light sticks and name tags in gold and white. The stores in Myungdong Station only sold tacky dark yellow ones, so I was happy to have found white ones here! Sadly there's no 김명수, only 엘. So after buying the concert goods the following day, I decided to buy my new top three here, 1,000₩ each for all the vendors. Other vendors sold cold drinks and tarps for us campers.

At around 9:30PM, the tarp vendor came to the line obnoxiously trying to sell tarps and not making any sales. From 12:30AM until 5AM, it was pretty peaceful and quiet for the most part. Except at 2AM, when most of us had just started falling asleep, the tarp vendor came around again. And then at around 5:10AM, a guy who had closed up his burger shop was trying to get rid of extra burgers to us.

I was able to catch some sleep from around 1AM to 5AM (except for when those vendors came around), and was oddly woken up by my dream: the tents opened at dawn, and we got in line lackadaisically, then just as we stepped in line, all the merchandise sold out and I woke up. And then the burger guy came. So another five hours to go~

Even though it's the super hot season, staying in the elements at odd hours wasn't what I had expected. At 6AM it became breezy and chilly, and at 8AM it was sprinkling. Then later on the sun shined on us intensely. Local fangirls had opaque umbrellas and threw light blankets over them to create a shield from the sun.

Occasionally a security guard walked by us. Then at 7:58AM he intentionally woke us all up and told us to make rows of four instead of one. But by doing this, it seems easier for others to cut and it seems more disorganized. Then at 8:30 staff started rolling in boxes of merchandise, and they seemed to finish setting up within 20 minutes. Then they tied up the banner for the front of the tent.
Then at 9:32 a staff member passed out the pieces of paper for us to mark the quantity we wanted for each item. I was so excited, it's just like what I've seen on Twitter for past concerts! They gave exactly one per person, so I couldn't take an extra home for a souvenir.

At 9:39 they told us to consolidate everything. And from here on out, workers kept emphasizing for us to check our receipt at the register, and again check at the merchandise tent to make sure we have everything, as once we exit the fenced off merchandise area, we can't go back. Yet my friend did later on, and realized they didn't give her the sticker set, and they still gave it to her.

Promptly at 10, the four registers opened. Everything is very organized, as a worker points to which register you should go to and announces when items are sold out. Right at 10:05, my friend and I were next in line, and suddenly the worker announces that the cheering towels are sold out. I was in disbelief, as only about 10 people were in front of us! That means at most 40 cheering towels were allotted today, which is ridiculously low. Yet when my friend went up to purchase, she was able to buy the last two cheering towels! I was so relieved, as I didn't want to wait in line all over again. When it was my turn, I handed the cashier my sheet, and she confirmed with me first in Korean, then in English, everything I had ordered, crossing off the cheering towel. I then went to the merchandise tent and the worker took my receipt and began gathering my goods. You shouldn't start bagging your items until the worker gave you everything, because they go over every item on the receipt and mark them to double check. Also for Infinite concerts, they don't provide shopping bags so you must bring your own. My friend was still having difficulty packing everything, so there's one worker dedicated to bringing customers' merchandise to an open space to keep the flow of customers more smoothly.

We stayed for awhile and monitored when items were sold out. By 10:30, the ID card case and clear file set were sold out. By 11:14, the big fan was sold out and there was no more line. By 11:52, the paper frames were also sold out.

My friend went again at 4PM and saw that the only items available now were the light stick, strap, beach towel and beach hood. So it does seem like with each day fewer items are being sold.

While we were waiting around, basking in Infinite happiness, a fansite came around passing out goodies. I got a small bag of cute stickers.
Here is the merchandise I bought from the first day.
And here's the remainder of the merchandise that I bought on the second day. I'll have unboxing posts for all the items soon.

The experience and rush of buying goods was so fun and intense; I'll definitely cherish this memory, and hope I can do it again in the future!

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