January 18th has finally come, the first day of Golden Child's first solo concert Future And Past! This concert takes place at Blue Square I Market Hall in Itaewon. I'm glad to be back in a familiar venue after seeing Infinite during their That Summer 2 concert series here.
I'll give a quick debrief on the painful experience of preordering the official Golden Child concert merchandise. Woollim posted on Golden Child's official Twitter on January 8th at 2PM KST here that preorders would be on everlineshop.com from January 9th at 2PM KST through January 11th. On January 9th at 2PM Woollim released the merchandise list here. The goods site (both Korean and global) crashed right away and a few minutes later an official tweet stated preorders would be postponed for one hour. At 3PM the site was back up, however only 2 items were listed (and we knew the site previously listed 9 items) and the site continued to crash with each click of the button. Within time more items were added to the site, however about an hour and a half later, only 7 of the 9 items were listed. I gave up waiting for the remaining items and went to check out on the global site. However they forced me to enter a shipping address and pay for EMS shipping - is this not to pick up at the venue? I didn't want to pay for shipping and decided to not order. Eventually all 9 items were posted and soon after all items were sold out. Then the site was completely down, as if they just took everyone's money and ran...hours later the site was back up.
I had also looked on the Korean site (you need to create a separate account from the global site) and proceeded to check out, and they also charged shipping. Later on they removed the shipping fee on the Korean site.
Eventually the sites started working again and the items were back in stock, all except for the lightstick pouch. On the 11th my friend let me know that it was back in stock, so I placed my order on the global site (the Korean site doesn't accept foreign credit cards) and incurred the ridiculous shipping fee. There were only 2 lightstick pouches left in stock before I placed my order. Now I just hope I can pick up my order at the venue...
Another note, there is a limit of 5 per item. Even though there are 10 versions of the ID photo, I could only order 5.
And now fast forward to January 18th, the first day of Golden Child's first concert! I arrived at Blue Square around 10:30AM to the gorgeous banners spread throughout the venue.
So many of these double banners are on display.
And at I Market Hall is the large banner, along with posters on the glass.
There is also a standing banner of the available concert goods.
There were two lines: one to purchase goods and one to pick up preorders. Those in line to purchase were given an itemized sheet. There were about 10 in line for pick up and maybe 20 in line for purchase. All the goods and transactions would be done inside the hall. Of course I foolishly got in the wrong line at first, but then I was able to stand right next to the glass and take a picture of the posters.
Right at 11AM, the doors opened. Once the line moved and I was inside, I could see the display of all the merchandise. Behind the counter were several tables containing all the available merchandise.
For pick up, there were four sections, split by name (if Korean), as well as English and Japanese. The last section was for dealing with refunds. I picked up my order, and asked for my shipping refund. They gave it to me in KRW even though I paid in USD, and it seemed like they shorted me...unsure of what exchange rate they used. My friend also had an order but she wasn't going to the concert, so she had previously asked to change the name on her order to mine. The worker at first asked if I had her passport, then said my passport works. And again I got her shipping refund as well.
Next I wanted to buy additional goods, including 6 more ID photos. The worker said the maximum per order is 5, so I had to use the dim sum sheet to mark 5, complete my purchase, and then use another dim sum sheet to mark 1, and make another purchase (there was no one else in line so I could make back-to-back purchases).
Here is all the merch I collected. I'll have unboxing posts in my main blog.
Afterwards I asked staff about some housekeeping rules. Ticket pick-up starts at 3PM at the box office. You need your confirmation number (which I had printed out) and passport, and you can only pick up that day's ticket. Also there are small lockers that you can rent out, which opened at around 4PM.
I dropped off all my merch and came back to the venue at about 2:45PM. There were also two wreaths to celebrate Golden Child's first solo concert; I believe one from Kakao M, and the other from Music Bank.
I picked up today's concert ticket at the box office. Unfortunately the design is Interpark's generic design rather than one to match the concert's theme. But nonetheless it felt so satisfying seeing my own name on my ticket! And yes it says I bought this ticket on January 8th; that is because I kept improving my number; you can read about that experience on my main blog here.
Next was collecting goodies! Fansites and fans were all hanging around under the overpass next to the venue, selling slogan sets and handing out freebies. On Twitter you can see when a freebie is about to be handed out, and then a swarm of fans would get in line and hopefully make the cut to receive the goodie. Other times I'd blindly get in a line. And sometimes I'd get in a line too late and they'd run out. Overall, it's a really fun experience being with other fans and enjoying the work and support of others.
Here is everything I got! Also a Jaehyun fansite had extra cup sleeves from his birthday cafe event, and had a box of them that she let fans take as much as we'd like! I hadn't seen this box, but my friend graciously gave me an extra she had. Also that banner at the bottom is the one given at the concert to hold up during the encore stage.
I'll write about my concert experience in the next post.
After the concert, I saw a total of four wreaths, including one from JBJ95 (and Star Wars co-MC) Kenta.
Afterwards, I tagged along with a mutual (who I was so flattered when she followed me back awhile ago!) and her friends. In the middle of dinner, I found out that these other Goldenness are also really big in the fandom community and I was so shocked that I was eating dinner with them! And they even knew who I was too! This connection between international Goldenness felt so special, and even though we had all just met, it felt like we had been friends for so long. Honestly I had thought I'd be doing all my concert festivities alone, but it turns out I've made lasting friendships and hope that Golden Child will bring us all together again!
I'll give a quick debrief on the painful experience of preordering the official Golden Child concert merchandise. Woollim posted on Golden Child's official Twitter on January 8th at 2PM KST here that preorders would be on everlineshop.com from January 9th at 2PM KST through January 11th. On January 9th at 2PM Woollim released the merchandise list here. The goods site (both Korean and global) crashed right away and a few minutes later an official tweet stated preorders would be postponed for one hour. At 3PM the site was back up, however only 2 items were listed (and we knew the site previously listed 9 items) and the site continued to crash with each click of the button. Within time more items were added to the site, however about an hour and a half later, only 7 of the 9 items were listed. I gave up waiting for the remaining items and went to check out on the global site. However they forced me to enter a shipping address and pay for EMS shipping - is this not to pick up at the venue? I didn't want to pay for shipping and decided to not order. Eventually all 9 items were posted and soon after all items were sold out. Then the site was completely down, as if they just took everyone's money and ran...hours later the site was back up.
I had also looked on the Korean site (you need to create a separate account from the global site) and proceeded to check out, and they also charged shipping. Later on they removed the shipping fee on the Korean site.
Eventually the sites started working again and the items were back in stock, all except for the lightstick pouch. On the 11th my friend let me know that it was back in stock, so I placed my order on the global site (the Korean site doesn't accept foreign credit cards) and incurred the ridiculous shipping fee. There were only 2 lightstick pouches left in stock before I placed my order. Now I just hope I can pick up my order at the venue...
Another note, there is a limit of 5 per item. Even though there are 10 versions of the ID photo, I could only order 5.
For pick up, there were four sections, split by name (if Korean), as well as English and Japanese. The last section was for dealing with refunds. I picked up my order, and asked for my shipping refund. They gave it to me in KRW even though I paid in USD, and it seemed like they shorted me...unsure of what exchange rate they used. My friend also had an order but she wasn't going to the concert, so she had previously asked to change the name on her order to mine. The worker at first asked if I had her passport, then said my passport works. And again I got her shipping refund as well.
Afterwards I asked staff about some housekeeping rules. Ticket pick-up starts at 3PM at the box office. You need your confirmation number (which I had printed out) and passport, and you can only pick up that day's ticket. Also there are small lockers that you can rent out, which opened at around 4PM.
Next was collecting goodies! Fansites and fans were all hanging around under the overpass next to the venue, selling slogan sets and handing out freebies. On Twitter you can see when a freebie is about to be handed out, and then a swarm of fans would get in line and hopefully make the cut to receive the goodie. Other times I'd blindly get in a line. And sometimes I'd get in a line too late and they'd run out. Overall, it's a really fun experience being with other fans and enjoying the work and support of others.
I'll write about my concert experience in the next post.
Afterwards, I tagged along with a mutual (who I was so flattered when she followed me back awhile ago!) and her friends. In the middle of dinner, I found out that these other Goldenness are also really big in the fandom community and I was so shocked that I was eating dinner with them! And they even knew who I was too! This connection between international Goldenness felt so special, and even though we had all just met, it felt like we had been friends for so long. Honestly I had thought I'd be doing all my concert festivities alone, but it turns out I've made lasting friendships and hope that Golden Child will bring us all together again!
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