Golden Child Fanmeeting via Studio PAV Review

By now I'm sure we've all heard of all of the issues regarding Studio PAV. Unfortunately this organizer is hosting Golden Child's fanmeeting on November 27th, 2020 at 8PM EST (the time was posted before US daylight savings occurred...), and the conflict I, along with many others, are facing is whether or not to buy a ticket. In the end, I did decide to participate in order to support Golden Child, especially when there is a live Zoom audience where Golden Child can see the participation.

Tiers:

VIP ($69 USD)

• Live + VOD: VOD is available for 3 months after being published
• Poster with printed signature
• Souvenir ONCAST ticket
• Zoom Live: participate in the live audience via Zoom
• Sing-Along: record yourself singing, and Studio PAV will compile a video for Golden Child
• Fan Letter: any ticket holder can write a message to OT10 and any or all of the members. Studio PAV will create the fan letter then VIP ticket holders can record themselves reading the letter for Golden Child
• Q&A: VIP ticket holders can submit questions for Golden Child to pick and answer during the fanmeeting
• Fan's Wish: VIP ticket holders can submit a request for Golden Child to do during the fanmeeting

Live + VOD ($25 USD)

VOD Only ($10 USD)

After a lot of discussion, I decided to get the VIP ticket. The processing fee was $3.45 USD and the cheapest shipping within the US (media mail) was $2.80 USD, so overall the total became $75.25 USD.

Schedule (in US time):

• September 24: Studio PAV tweeted an image of "Oncast Live Golden Child Coming Soon"
• October 23: Studio PAV tweeted that the event is an ONCAST Live Fanmeet on Friday, November 27th at 11PM EST (again, this was before daylight savings occurred), along with a video message from Golden Child
• October 26: Studio PAV tweeted that ticket says will begin on Friday, October 30th at 2PM EDT 
• October 29: Studio PAV tweeted the tiers and prices. There is no indication that any tier is limited in quantity
• October 30: Studio PAV posted the VIP benefit descriptions on their Facebook here just a few hours before ticket sales
• October 30 2PM EST: ticket sales began
• November 5: Studio PAV tweeted that each member will pick 5 VIP ticket holders during the fanmeet to receive a special poster signed by all members. A VIP ticket purchased by November 20 is automatically qualified
• November 5: Google form opened for all ticket holders to submit their fan letter. Form closes on November 8 at 12PM EST
• November 13: Studio PAV sent an email to all VIP ticket holders 2 forms: 1) Fan's Wish, Q&A, ZOOM Live Audience; and 2) Fan Letter, with deadlines for both forms on Sunday November 22 11:59PM EST. The fan letter is now unscripted, while previously Studio PAV was going to compile fan's submissions for VIP ticket holders to read
• November 17: Studio PAV tweeted forms for Fan's Wish/Q&A/ZOOM Live Audience, Sing-Along, and Fan Letter. The song for Sing-Along is "Thank You". Studio PAV also sent an email to all VIP ticket holders with all 3 Google forms
• November 22: At 2PM PST Studio PAV sent a reminder email about tonight's deadline for all Google forms, and that they are lacking submissions for both the Fan Letter and Sing-Along. They also stated that you can instead mouth the words for the Sing-Along
• November 24: at 8AM PST Studio PAV sent an email to all VIP ticket holders asking to fill out the Fan's Wish, Q&A, ZOOM Live Audience form again, this time with a question and wish for each member
• November 25: At around 5:30PM PST Studio PAV sent an email to VIP ticket holders for the Zoom Live Audience, complete with a step-by-step guide and logistics. They called out that you must watch the live stream of the fanmeeting on another device because it won't be viewable through Zoom
• November 26: At around 6AM PST Studio PAV sent an email to all live stream ticket holders with the access code and instructions for viewing the live stream
• November 26: At around 8AM PST Studio PAV tweeted that they will post a question on their SNS after the show in regards to something that happened during the fanmeet; VIP and general ticket holders can answer the question for a chance to randomly win a Polaroid from Golden Child 

Day of Fanmeeting:

• Zoom check-in was 6:30PM - 7PM PST
• To watch the live, you need to make an account on http://kpoplive.tv/ and enter your access code
• You must refresh the link right at 8PM for the live stream to load
• I found the Discord chat helpful in resolving technical difficulties; you need to sign into Discord first
• About 60 people were in the Zoom room
• 49 screens in the fanmeeting, 1 screen per Zoom member
• There was about a minute lag between Zoom and what was shown in the fanmeeting
• Fanmeeting was about 1 hour 20 minutes long

Fanmeeting:

• Golden Child opened with "Damdadi" then "Let Me" wearing their red "OMG" outfits
• An MC came on stage and spoke in both Korean and English
• Fan letter was shown to Golden Child - it was a bit unorganized where not every member had an individual message, and some parts weren't clear if they were dedicated for a specific member or for the group as a whole
• Goldenness' Wish segment - a board with about 50 post-its. Also a bit unorganized where many of these wishes were dedicated to Golden Child as a whole, when Studio PAV had asked us to send member-specific wishes. The form indicated that the members would read these wishes with "(Name) from (City)'s wish is..." but I don't think the members were informed of this as it didn't really happen
• During the wish segment, the members split in half and took turns to change into their black suits from the 2019 KBS end of year festival
• Golden Child performed "Wannabe" and "Without You"
• Q&A segment - the questions were all pre-selected and the MC read them out
• Golden Child performed "One"
• "Thank You" sing-along shown. A lot of clips were for parts where there was no singing; I should've participated in this part...
• Golden Child performed "Pump It Up"

After the Fanmeeting:

• Studio PAV posted the secret mission form on their SNS (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) at 9:42PM PST
• The list of 50 winners for the signed posters was not announced during the fanmeeting. PAV had previously stated that each member would choose 5 winners. I replied to PAV's secret mission tweet shortly after, and about 30 minutes later they replied that they'll post about the winners on their SNS very soon
• On December 8th at 11:04AM PST, PAV tweeted that all winners of the Lucky Draw and Secret Mission have been notified via email. At 1:46PM PAV tweeted a video revealing the 20 autographed Polaroids for the Secret Mission, 2 per member (indirectly announcing that there were 20 winners for this)
• My friend won a Polaroid; On December 21st, she received her package. She also won the signed poster and is in the VIP tier, but those items weren't included in her Polaroid package
• On December 22 at about 9AM PST Studio PAV sent 2 emails: 1 email to Lucky Draw winners that the posters still need to be signed and sent to their office before being sent to winners; 1 email to VIP ticket holders that PAV is still waiting for the poster with printed signature and souvenir ticket to arrive from Korea
• On February 12 PAV sent an email to VIP ticket holders that all merchandise has been received from Korea and that a tracking number will be provided once shipped. They also provided a reminder of each ticket tier merchandise, which looked like they had copied and pasted benefits from a different event. I emailed back to them and they confirmed that it is the printed poster and souvenir ticket
• On February 26 my friend in California received her PAV package with her signed poster and souvenir ticket. She didn't receive a printed poster nor was she informed of her tracking

Receiving My Package

My package arrived on March 1st via USPS. This is quite a sad looking box...

The poster came rolled up with the souvenir ticket placed on top, followed by a clear plastic bag, and then several layers of bubblewrap. A bit silly to package a rolled poster with bubblewrap and a cardboard box...

Here is the clear plastic bag that the goods were placed in.

It's cute that they used an event wristband to tie the poster, but I used scissors to slice it and accidentally got a bit of the poster, but luckily not enough to cut through...

And here is my really sad looking poster. For an autographed poster that you generally can't get anywhere, it's such a shame that PAV can't package their goods better. For something that should be super exciting, I was definitely quite disappointed and sad, though not surprised knowing PAV's reputation. The poster is 18" by 24".

Here is the souvenir ticket that comes with the VIP tier.

Here is the back of the ticket. Why do they even bother listing out benefits under VIP such as "Exclusive Photocard (Full set)"? This was clearly not advertised nor did I receive such a benefit. The QR code takes you to the VOD which is hilarious because the VOD expired on February 28th, a day before I received my ticket.

I decided to send PAV an email so that they are aware of how they can improve their packaging, especially when their tagline is "Where everyone is treated like a VIP". I also asked about the poster with printed signature since that was the other physical benefit for the VIP tier and I didn't receive that.

Within 30 minutes I received a reply from PAV, however they shifted the blame on the carrier rather than accepting my feedback for them to improve their service to their customers. As for the poster, they stated that the autographed poster replaced the printed version.

Overall, I really hope Woollim doesn't partner with Studio PAV again. Or rather, I hope PAV can improve on their packaging especially when these are really special items that we can't just get anywhere. As for the ontact event, I enjoyed the fan letter and sing-along benefits. I just want PAV to be more straightforward about all their logistics (ex. Golden Child reading out the 50 winners of the autographed posters, Golden Child reading the fans' names for those questions and wishes, and PAV asking fans to submit fan letters, questions, and wishes to specific members when none of that mattered at the end...). What frustrates me the most about PAV is that they're practically a monopoly and there is no reason for them to improve on their faults because fans such as myself will continue to purchase these packages.