[KCON18NY] Buying Tickets for KCON New York 2018

KCON is a Hallyu convention that brings Kpop, Kdramas, Kbeauty, and more to fans around the world. In the US, KCON comes to New York (technically Newark, New Jersey) in late June and to LA in late July or late August annually. Along with the convention, KCON USA brings a big handful of Kpop artists for special artist engagements and for a two-night concert.

KCON has been coming to the US since 2012, however KCON New York 2018 will be my first! KCON always seems more ideal for multifandom fans, which is why I never considered going. On April 4th, KCON began their first round of hints for announcing the artist lineup. On May 3rd, KCON had already announced 9 artists for their NY lineup, the same amount as last year's. On May 9th, they announced a 10th artist - none other than Golden Child! After seeing the first hint for the surprise 10th artist, I knew I had to go to KCON NY this year. All images from this post are taken from KCON's social media.

With Golden Child as the final artist announcement, this is the official lineup for the Saturday and Sunday concerts:

KCON has many flaws, and after going through these past few days of ticketing, I understand what everyone's talking about. KCON NY is on June 23rd and 24th, concert ticket sales began on May 11th at 12PM PDT, and convention ticket sales began on May 14th at 12PM PDT. There is very little communication, and everything is announced on such short notice.

Ticketing System

First I'll discuss this year's ticketing system. The highest tiered tickets are Diamond and Platinum, and include entry into the special pit section of the concerts in between the main stage and extended stage, as well as extra artist engagement benefits. These tickets are so pricey, but seem more worth it for multifandom attendees.

Concert Tickets
Diamond, Platinum, and all other concert tickets are bought via Ticketmaster. For those opting out of Diamond and Platinum, you must buy the concert ticket and convention ticket separately. You can choose to purchase an individual ticket for Saturday, an individual ticket for Sunday, or a combo ticket for both days. The ticket limit per account is either 4 combo tickets OR 4 Saturday tickets and 4 Sunday tickets. Below are the prices and tiers, prior to ridiculously high fees by Ticketmaster.

And below is the original seating chart posted on KCON's website. Based on this chart, I knew I wanted to be in either 7, 6, 21, or 20. I also chose to first buy Sunday's ticket instead of doing a combo in hopes of getting a better seat. Unfortunately I'm still unsure if combo had certain seats reserved that are better than individual days' seats.

Diamond, Platinum, and concert ticket sales began on Friday, May 11th at 12PM PDT. The events weren't up on Ticketmaster's site until after 9AM on that Friday. There are 3 event pages: one for the combo of both days (this includes Diamond and Platinum), one for Saturday, and one for Sunday. 

Prior to noon, I had several browsers open to the Sunday event page which showed a countdown until ticket sales begin. After it hit noon, it brought me to the ticketing page along with a whole list of potentially available seats. Usually the site would just give you the best seat available, so I was pleasantly surprised to see all the available options. 

I opened another browser sometime after ticketing began, and the site would only give me the best available seat. It's best to be accustomed to both methods (as well as selecting the individual seat from a seating map).

I clicked on a seat, and a minute or so later it would be taken. Then the site suggests another seat, or I could choose from the list again, and again the site said the ticket was already taken. At times I'd reach the checkout place, but would get kicked out to the seat selection page again. Sometimes it even said that no more tickets were available. This went on for 35 minutes until I finally had a purchase go through, for Section 6 Row 23. I had so much adrenaline that I chose to also get the ticket insurance, which I didn't know would cost around $12. I later found a way to cancel the insurance online. After fees, my single P1 ticket cost $191.70.

I decided to also go for the Saturday concert. After 10 minutes of going through the same cycle, I got another seated P1 ticket in Section 21 Row 23. I opted out of the insurance, so my ticket cost $184.70. I basically got the same seat for both days, just one on the left and the other on the right, and in Row 23 which is the last row in these sections.

While ticketing, I saw section 19 pop up. I was tempted to select it but because it wasn't on KCON's original seating chart, I neglected it in fear that Prudential Center would reject the ticket. It turns out, KCON's website uploaded a new seating chart to include sections 8 and 19, right next to the stage.

Convention Tickets

Diamond and Platinum tickets include access to the convention and various artist engagements. Diamond receives access to all hi-touches, all audiences, and both red carpets. Platinum receives access to 2 hi-touches, all audiences, and both red carpets. For regular convention goers, the 2-day ticket is $20 plus a $0.99 processing fee. There are also add-ons (without any additional fees): various artist engagement packs that include hi-touch, audience, and red carpet access, as well as Klub Kcon for $25. I'll have more details on my experience of the various artist engagements and Klub Kcon in future posts.

I'll briefly describe the various artist engagements:

• Hi-Touch: you get to high five an artist from the lineup
• Audience: you get to be behind the hi-touch people and watch them high five the artist
• Red Carpet: you get to attend the "Red Carpet" on either Saturday or Sunday to see the artists from that day's lineup
• All Access Gallery: you get to view all artist engagements (excluding Red Carpet) from an elevated area in the venue

Convention ticket sales began on May 14th at 12PM PDT at www.kconusa.com. As expected of this disorganized operation, KCON USA's official Twitter posted instructions to purchasing these tickets 7 minutes before sales began. I opened the webpage in both Chrome and Edge, and as expected servers were quite slow. Somehow I was able to complete my purchase on Edge instead of Chrome. You first click on "Get Tickets" for the convention, then "Create Registration". You can only create one registration per person (and therefore technically one artist engagement pack per person). You fill out your information, take a random survey, select the 2-day convention pass, then you go to the page with 4 artist engagement options. If one is sold out, the site would say so. I chose A1. Then you have the option of buying a $25 ticket to Klub Kcon, essentially a dance party for all ages that includes a special guest from the lineup. It turns out, you are able to add Klub Kcon any time after you've made a registration, whereas you must buy an artist engagement pack with your convention ticket at the same time. (I think KCON is working on fixing this so that you can add a pack anytime after you've purchased your convention ticket). The total, with the 2-day convention pass, A1 artist engagement pack, and Klub Kcon ticket, came up to $200.99. Adding this to my 2 concert tickets is almost $600...when I thought Platinum was ridiculously priced, the next best options are still quite expensive. I finished my purchase in 12 minutes. Apparently other users were having issues and weren't able to purchase the A1 pack. I checked 9 hours later, and A1 was sold out. However days afterwards, people have been able to purchase A1 again.

The Release of Additional Concert and Artist Engagement Packs
On Friday, May 25th, KCON announced through their live Facebook stream that they would release additional concert tickets and artist engagement packs on the following Wednesday, May 30th at 12PM PDT. The release of additional packs is upsetting to those who had settled for A2. The release of additional concert tickets has been even more devastating...

Ticketmaster has the option to upgrade your ticket for $10 (once per event). Your new seat must be of the same value or higher. I decided to call the fan support center so that a representative could help me with ticketing and upgrading both my tickets. I called the helpline 15 minutes prior to ticket sales, and got a hold of a rep with 8 minutes to go. I explained to her the situation, since she couldn't see that new tickets would be released on her end, as well as the sections that I want to upgrade to. I also continuously checked KCON's website to see if they would slyly update their seating chart again, but even after 12PM it remained the same. However within these 8 minutes, I also went to Vivid Seats and found tickets in section 9, which wasn't in the latest seating chart.

A little bit after 12PM, additional tickets began to populate. Ticketmaster's map still showed sections 9 and 18 in gray, meaning that they're not part of the seating chart. However lo and behold, tickets for sections 9 and 18 were available. I decided not to upgrade to these sections, as the view to the extended stage isn't good. The rep and I were only focusing on Sunday's show first, and we managed to upgrade my ticket to Section 20 Row 5. Afterwards, the rep also helped me to upgrade my Saturday ticket to Section 7 Row 12. We had finished both upgrades at 12:23.

KCON finally updated their seating chart later that day, and you can see with the additional sections 9 and 18, both stages have been pushed further back. It makes me bitter thinking I had to upgrade to get essentially the same line of sight as before the stage move.

Planning for KCON these past few weeks has been much more stressful than it is exciting. There is so much uncertainty (Which artists will hold hi-touch? Will I be able to get what I want for the random artist engagements? Is this the final seating chart?). But at the same time, I'm putting such little expectation to this weekend trip that I'm hoping it'll be much more spectacular than I could ever imagine. I will have more posts about KCON18NY for D-0, D-1, and D-2.