Universiade Festival Eve Kpop Concert (Video of me on TV)

Universiade officially started in Gwangju on Friday, July 3rd and it's been the best thing to happen in Gwangju since I've moved here.

What's Universiade?

Over 20,000 university athletes and officials from 170 countries have descended on Gwangju and the surrounding Jeollanam-do, Jeollabuk-do and Chungcheongbuk-do province to take part in 12 days of competition.

It's the best.

I first heard that there was going to be a big concert for Universiade on Wednesday....and the concert was the following day. The Universiade Festival Eve Concert sounded really amazing. Not only was the concert free, but there were going to be popular Kpop idols performing. I immediately wanted to go- but there were no more tickets! It turned out that people had been able to pick up tickets the previous weekend (I had been frolicking with monks at a temple at the time). Megan (a HUGE kpop fan) had gotten her hands on a ticket and heard that there was a chance for people to be let in after 9pm (concert started at 8:30). That was good enough for me.

 

People had been lining up for the concert since early afternoon but, because of work, I didn't get to the venue until 5:30. We ended up in a really great place in line thanks to another foreigner who had been queuing since 3. While we were waiting, a staff member came around and started giving out stickers for the standing area (closest area to the stage). Everyone rushed to get a sticker.

Oh, what's that? You need a ticket for a sticker? Great...don't have that.

While I was accepting my ticketless, stickerless fate, the most magical thing happened. The girls in front of us overheard us talking about not having a ticket and happened to have an extra one. Thus, within 5 minutes, I had a ticket, a sticker and we were in a new line for the standing area.

So excited to have a ticket and sticker!!!

With some other foreigners at the concert.

The concert was held at Chonnam University and the atmosphere was amazing. They had set up the stage on the soccer field and there was space for over 7000 people. When you entered the venue you were greeted with a handful of disinfectant and packets of vitamins (thanks Mers!). The standing area wasn't very crowded and we found ourselves right next to the stage.

Waiting in line for the standing area. Relatively short compared to the seating area line.

Megan and I showing off how close to the stage we are

The stage right behind us. We were on the edge and were super close to this part of the stage.

The concert was a blur of lights, fun pop music and pretty idols. I knew most of the acts and recognized almost all of the songs. We saw Exid, Bts, Mina (from Girl's Day), Shinee, Romantic Punch, and a few other really famous (but older) singers. Each performer sang one or two songs and then they quickly moved on. My videos don't upload while to Blogger but here's how the rest of the nation saw the concert (BTS is performing).

Exid performing Up, Down. I need a better camera for movement shots...so sad

Shinee showing off their boyband moves

Romantic Punch lead vocalist being a super cool rock star. Also the wonderful camera man who was all up in our grill

My favorite performers were Romantic Punch and Shinee. Romantic Punch is a rock group that I had never heard of before the concert and the lead vocalist was really charismatic. I was having so much fun watching him dance that I ended up on T.V. I can't bring myself to watch it but I'm (supposedly) shown a few times during the performance. Video is below. As expected of Korea, the concert ended at exactly 10pm (Korean punctuality is amazing). It was a really fun concert and I'm happy I went.

It's been a bit embarrassing to keep having students come up to me and tell me they saw me on T.V. A friend of a friend also saw me on T.V. and ended up taking a picture of it. Additionally, I went to a baseball game the other night (I'll write more about Universiade sports another time) and I saw a student with his mom. His mom told me that they saw me on T.V. and took pictures for me. The best response was from a foreigner that I had never met. She walked up to me at a bar and told me that she recognized me from T.V. and that I had looked really good/represented the foreigner community in Gwangju well. I thought I had just looked like a sweaty, happy, mess so her words really made me happy.

My friend David's coworker took this picture.

Peace!