[LA November 2019] K-Content EXPO 2019 LA

K-Content EXPO has been held previously in around the world including Indonesia, Thailand, Dubai, Mexico, and more. And in November 2019, K-Content EXPO was held in LA! This expo seemed pretty discreet, with the event's Facebook page's first post on October 1st showing a poster of the events including a Kpop concert on November 9th, and then on October 10th a poster of Heize, Lovelyz (!!!), and JBJ95 for the concert. More details were slowly revealed on their Facebook and Instagram pages, and the organizer sporadically replied to users' questions.

Each location operates its events differently. For LA's concert, tickets were free and made available only through Makestar via a pre-order link. The tickets were broken down into four sections: A (far left; 260 sets available), B (middle left, 245 sets available), C (middle right, 245 sets available), and D (far right, 260 seats available). The number of available sets was known once ticketing began, however prior to ticketing the seating chart looked like the middle sections had the most capacity. Each account could purchase one set of tickets, and each set came with two tickets, meaning a total of 2,010 seats. Ticketing began on October 28th at 7PM PDT. Generally if you had a stable internet connection, you'd be able to log in, access the link, select your zone, and check out, though there were errors due to high traffic. You should receive a confirmation email with your reservation number, which is needed to redeem for your two wristbands and seat numbers.

There were of course many questions on exactly how receiving physical tickets works; here I'll explain how I went through the process and my experience ticketing at the venue. My friends and I were able to secure 5 sets of tickets in C. You can change the recipient name for each set at any time, even if it differs from the account name.

After greeting Lovelyz at the airport (read about my experience here), a few friends and I carpooled from LAX to the expo venue, The Source OC at Buena Park. We arrived after 6pm, and the expo was still going on until around 7pm, though it was quite empty by now.

The expo only had one row of booths at the mall (part of the expo took place in downtown LA), with standees of Kpop artists that had Makestar projects (no Lovelyz ones though). There weas one display showing a collage of past Makestar events, including Lovelyz' photobook fansign event.

One of us didn't have a set of concert tickets, so we tried to help him gain a ticket. There was a raffle where if you collected a stamp from all the booths, you'd be entered for a drawing at 7pm. The four of us completed this (by the way, the booths were a bit disappointing; one had VR equipment that was down, another had a tattoo maker that was very limited and slow) and gave our entries to the one without a concert ticket. He went to the raffle booth and out of the four raffle entries he had, he was the 6th, 7th, and 8th winners, and received concert tickets for B-131 to B-136; many participants had already left at this point and the staff was unbothered by one person claiming so many concert tickets. These were wristbands with handwritten seat numbers. My friend and I thought that these tickets are such far seats, especially when on social media the organization said that it was first come first serve from the front row to the back; we were bound to get better seats.

We parted ways at around 8pm, and it was now only my friend and me. Ticketing began on the 9th at 9am at the first floor ticket booth. Just earlier the organization sent an email about parking, along with a map of the mall and ticket booth location. We saw makeshift tents that weren't set up yet.

Around the mall we saw a huge poster for the concert. We scouted out the venue and saw that the stairs to the top of the parking lot were blocked off, and there was an impromptu stage set up on the very top of the parking lot; we figured this was the concert venue.

With an abundance of time to kill, we went to the food court which wouldn't close for another hour or two, and had dinner while we recharged our electronics. Outside we could see music videos projected! They were playing a Heize one, a JBJ95 one, and Lovelyz' "Ah-choo", the same three on repeat without sound.

At 10pm we loitered around these grand steps that look a lot like inside Coex Mall where Golden Child held their guerilla concert. At this point it was getting pretty cold, especially when I only had my summer clothes and was living off a backpack. We spent two hours playing cards and practicing Lovelyz fanchants. Some restaurants at this mall didn't close until 2am, so there were still several people around. We were hoping the movie theater would have a late night showing so we could buy a ticket to sleep for two hours (also they were showing Parasite, which we wanted to see), but the last showing of any movie was 10pm. At midnight we still didn't see anyone lining up, so we decided to head out and find some place to reenergize and warm up. As we were heading out of the mall, a security guard came up to us. My friend explained how we were planning on camping out, and the guard seemed hesitant. He called his supervisor over who readily agreed that we could camp out. It was really reassuring that we had the security guards on our side!

We went to Denny's, and saw they have a 2-hour maximum, so we stayed here from 12am to 2am, recharging our phones, dozing off, and warming up. We also saw one guy who was also at the airport; it looked like he had the same agenda as us.

We planned to meet my Lovelinus friend (who I first met at KTMF19 where we cheered for Lovelyz together!) so the three of us could camp out together.

The three of us went back to the ticket booth area and saw that the expo staff had set up the tents in a slightly different area, and had already marked the lines for each section. We brought our stuff to the beginning of line C and hung out on the staircase nearby. At this point the expo staff knew that we were first in line; it felt great having this reassurance in case others tried to cut. The staff even offered us energy drinks; they had a whole pallet to pass out later on.

Around 3am another Korean guy with a suitcase came by; I assumed he was just another staff member, but it turns out he just flew in from Korea to see Lovelyz! He goes to many Lovelyz events and will go to Japan the following week for Kei's solo promotions, and has Lovelinus friends with good intuition (for example of what songs they'd perform). He had limited English, and I quickly learned my Korean was beyond rusty, but we all bonded really well over our love and support for Lovelyz. He noticed my friend and I were cold and offered us hot packs! He had won a pair of tickets via an online event and had already received wristbands for 2xx, so he wanted to find someone with an extra ticket. We helped him find someone in C who had an extra ticket.

From 3am to 4am, Mijoo and Myungeun began a surprise audio vlive, which we all listened to, then one of the Golden Child music trailers came out at 3:28am, then Myungsoo held a surprise vlive; there's so much content if only I were naturally awake during this hour all the time!

Around 4am, a few more people got into line, for sections B and C. We asked who they were here for, and majority of them were for Heize. Here was my view from the front of C.

By 7am, the first person for D lined up while A was still empty. We quickly learned that he is a Lovelinus, as well as the first person in B. We were so excited to have all Lovelinus in the front! Soon the middle sections started filling up while D had several people in line, and by 9am the first person for A got in line. Right at 9, the staff said they were finalizing the seating map, and the first guy in D asked, "isn't the map already known?" We didn't think much of it. Soon the staff let us get our tickets.

My friend went to the booth first, and the first available seat was C-141, in row 11. She was able to select the seats, so she chose the seats closest to the center aisle. I chose the next seats in the same row, C-143 and C-144. The worker said that the first 10 rows, as well as another set of rows in the 200 count, were reserved for VIP (special guests and family, as well as raffle prizes). We waited all night, first in line, only to get seats worse than those won from the raffles. Even worse, only the first 10 rows of sections B and C were reserved; those in A and D were able to choose the very first row. So for those in A who waltzed right into line at 9am, had the best seats.

Even worse, I couldn't argue with the staff because this was a free event; they could easily just kick me out. We decided to go around the expo to try and win better seats. We went to one booth where if we posted on Instagram, we could enter to win concert tickets. The staff said that the tickets were very good, but not the best, yet I saw the tickets they had, including one at 233 and another at 348. We decided to give it a shot anyway. We got our raffle ticket and they would announce the winners at 4pm. The stamp raffle we did yesterday also said that they were no longer giving concert tickets.

We decided to take a breather from the toxic feelings of the expo, and go out to refresh and re-energize ourselves from our camp out. We came back to the expo just in time for the Random Dance Play at 3:30pm which had special guest JBJ95. They played random Kpop music videos (none from the three performing artists or any Woollim artists) while attendees danced together in the main plaza. At 3:27pm, JBJ95 came onto the stage and danced to (I think?) "Spark". I was surprised that without even really trying, I was pretty close to the stage! They danced for about 1:20 minutes.

Then JBJ95 gave their introduction and ment in Korean. After over a minute, the MC came up to the duo, then Sanggyun began to speak in English. Kenta spoke next, "I...don't speak English. Sorry! (x4) I love you! Thank you." And he was apologizing to everyone on the floor as well as on the balcony of the second floor, then made a big heart. The duo said their goodbyes in Korean, bowed, and waved to fans as they left the stage. They were on stage for under 4 minutes. I don't pay attention to artists outside of Woollim, but Kenta really caught my attention, especially since he's close with Jangjun and Jaehyun. When he said he didn't speak English, it made me really want Jaehyun here even more to help translate!

JBJ95 stayed on stage for just under 4 minutes. Afterwards they continued playing more music videos for attendees to dance to, but everyone dispersed. Of course now is when they play Lovelyz songs; "Wag-zak" and "WoW!" I was a bit shocked because I thought these would be the two title tracks they'd least likely perform.

At 4pm they ended up handing out wristbands to all raffle holders, but they were worse seats than ours. Later on, staff walked up to us handing out blank wristbands; they had lots of seats left and were trying to fill up the venue. We held onto the blank wristbands and walked back to the ticketing booth to see what seats were left, but they were very far away. We decided to settle for the seats we had, and with my extra ticket I offered it to our Korean Lovelinus friend as he received a 16x seat.

We went through security (bag check and metal detector), then walked a couple levels of the parking garage to the very top. Even though the concert would begin at 5pm, the sun was already setting so the lightsticks would shine beautifully.

There were folded chairs with seat numbers. Here is the view from behind the last row of C.

Here is the view from my seat. While of course we were all disappointed at not being in the first row despite being first in line, our view wasn't too bad. There was nothing else left to do but cheer for our girls!

The same three music videos were playing on the VCR; we kept practicing the "Ah-Choo" fanchants and made it quite apparent that we were here to cheer on Lovelyz!

The concert started late, at about 5:30pm. I'll have my concert experience in an upcoming post!