30.8.13 at 4:58 PM with ≡
wow, I haven't posted in nearly a month! anyways, I am back! so on August 24th~25th I was in LA for KCON 2013, the second k-pop convention to take place since last year. The line up this year was 2AM, EXO, f(x), G-Dragon, Teen Top, Henry, Yoo Seung Woo, & Dynamic Duo.
August 24th
Okay, so the kcon staff had said that vip 1 and vip 2 ticket holders could start lining up at 8AM and we would be able to get into the convention early. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. So this morning me and my cousins woke up at 4:30am to drive up to LA where we got in line at ~7:20am. We were thinking that this was gonna be quick but HAHAHHAHAHAA, we didn't even get our stuff until about 10:30am. So basically we spent 3+ hours waiting in line while general admission was streaming through the gates no problems (only one person was running vip 1, while general admission had 3 people. WHY.)
we were fairly close to the front when we first arrived
and while waiting in line a kris fansite were passing out banners and it was super cute djkfngkdsjgh look at it!
this was the line at around 9AM and this is just INSIDE the gates. I had heard that the line even wrapped around the entire block or something.
we got our pink kcon bag and it included the following:
light stick
pamphlet
fan
buttons
and a t-shirt
we also had to get a wrist band for the two day convention (blue was for vip 1, pink was for everyone else)
ANYWAYS, I was able to get a 2AM fansign and red carpet! I ended up selling my red carpet ticket to some Chinese fans for $20, so not bad! (red carpet was at 5PM but the lineup for vip 1 and vip 2 standing was 4PM so I couldn't go regardless.) The fansign wasn't until 2pm and at this point it was almost 11am so the six of us (me, my two cousins, and my cousin's 3 friends) decided to go to the booths, looks around, and buy stuff.
first thing we did was buy albums (each one was $30, like WHAT?! but at least the bts one was autographed!) I got these at the official kcon merchandise booth.
after looking around at all the fan booths and such, we continued to venture on inside and made our first stop at the SM tent where they were selling official exo, f(x), & henry merchandise. the line was fairly long but moved really fast since all you do is go in, tell them what you want, pay, & leave.
I only ended up buying chen, suho, & xiumin notebooks ;;;;; each one was $10 though omg
after chatting with two girls standing in front of us we found out that there was a music plaza booth that was selling official albums, so I bought infinite's destiny & infinite h's fly high. (i'm an inspirit okay.) each one was $16
we still had some time left so we walked around trying free samples & taking chips and lemonade from the vip "lounge" (it was really a tent with chairs, haaaaa. but at least the food was free.) and I got this towel by playing a game. all you had to do was roll 2 big cardboard dice and whatever the number is you get that prize. bibigo is endorsed by PSY, by the way.
they also had a tous les jours booths and they were handing out kim soohyun mini posters, eheheheh.
so around 1PM we decided to get in line for the 2AM fansign and by now it was soooooo hot. I was covered in sweat and we were all feeling tired and gross, but we waited anyways. at around 1:50pm they let started letting in the people who had fansign tickets inside first. the set up was basically a stage, some cameras, a fence, the fansign people, another fence, and the other people who had audience viewing tickets.
it wasn't for another few minutes and then 2AM made their appearance and OH MY GOD, they're all so good looking in real life ;;;;;;; and after they did their greetings and introduced themselves the fansign began immediately. each member said hello, made eye contact with me, signed their autograph, made some more eye contact, and said thank you. I AM SWOONING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT AGAIN.
(sorry for the watermark, you can never be too sure about thieves y'know)
what was cool was that after the fansign we were able to go back into the audience section and I was able to take a bunch of photos! more than 400+ but I'll show a few to you all right now :)
after the fansign they answered a few questions, such as when their next album will be coming out, their ideal types (I think only Jinwoon answered this), and that they wanted to thank their fans for always loving and supporting them and that they were grateful for the opportunity to come to LA to perform. then after the mini Q&A session it was time for the high-touch.
after the high-touch they said some parting words and had to leave ;;;;;;;;;;
I CAN'T BELIEVE I MET 2AM JskhfkHGKJSHJKDHKJShjSkdh
anyways, after the fansign my cousins had to immediately get in line for G-Dragon's audience viewing so me & my cousin's 3 friends decided to walk around some more and we stopped by the mini stage where Yoo Seung Woo was performing!
he's so cute omg ;;;; and he also performed I'm Yours UGH such a cutie pie I want to shower him with love.
anyways, after that my cousins came out of the audience viewing session and we decided to leave early (around ~5PM) and we went to k-town where we bought pink tape because we were not paying $30 for the album jfc and got dinner there as well.
(I got the group photocard for this album too, LOL)
they were also giving away free fans if you made a purchase ^^ I got exo (AND THEY MISSPELLED LUHAN'S NAME LOLOLOLOL)
August 25th
me & my cousins decided to arrive at the convention center later than the day before because we did not want to spend hours waiting in line so we got there around 9:30AM~10AM.
while walking to the back of a line, a fansite unnie was passing out kris baidu bar banners (the purple one) so we took a few ;;;;; my cousin's friend got me the sehun banner & the we ♥ exo banner was from the codeexo booth.
the line this time didn't take very long since all they had to do was look for either a pink or blue wrist band.
for the second day we really didn't do anything since we already had our artist engagement with 2AM the day before, so we just made the rounds to see if there was anything new to buy but in the end we ended up at the k-pop siblings panel since it was the closest one. AND OMFG JACKIE (Amber's older sister) IS SO HILARIOUS AND PRETTY. I would've taken fancams but I was saving my phone battery for the concert.
while walking to the vip lounge for some snacks, my cousins & I ran into these 2 girls who were quizzing people on their biases. if you got the question right, you were able to choose a pin. I chose Suho and my question was "true or false: did suho cry during their first win for wolf?" HEHHEHEHEE, and i chose this button idk I really liked it. IT WAS CALLING TO ME.
okay so the staff at kcon said that the time to lineup for vip 1 an vip 2 was at 4PM and when we walked to the front at 3:45PM THERE WAS ALREADY A LINE, LIKE ??????????? we were pretty pissed but decided to wait it out anyways; not like we had anything else to do. then around 5:30PM they started letting people in and once they scanned our tickets and told us "not to run" we were off! and seriously, who didn't run? I was holding hands with christine (my cousin's friend) and we ended up being split into 3 pairs and when we got to the floor, we started looking for a good spot to stand since two of us (me and my cousin) were going to try & take fancams. at first we were at the far left of the main stage, behind 3 rows of people but we eventually found a good spot in the second row from the far stage on the right side. if that didn't make sense, this was where we were for the concert:
after dynamic duo performed, I was able to weasel my way to the front row (right up against the fence) to take some fancams & I stayed there for the rest of the concert, LOL.
I posted my fancams on my youtube, so do check those out!
the concert itself was pretty self explanatory though some qualms that had irked me was that the security guard kept getting in my way djlfhjlsdhfgj and the giant camera that was sliding back and forth in front of me was rather bothersome (but necessary since they were filming the concert, hah.)
I didn't take a fancam of yoo seung woo (sobs) but I did take a few photos! most of them were blurry though ><"
what was funny was that my phone died right after 365 so I was scrambling to borrow my cousin's phone to film g-dragon & the ending stage.
all in all, that was the best 3 hours of my life and even though there was so much screaming and it was super hot, it was so much fun. afterwards me & my cousins were so drained so we ended up going to mcdonalds down the road for drinks before getting picked up.
I think my biggest regret was not being able to meet up with anyone from twitter/tumblr because everything was kind of all over the place and dkfhkjdshgjk I feel that kcon seriously needs more organization and I don't know whether or not if I'll go next year (and quite honestly, this depends on the line up hahaha.)
Labels: 2am, albums, exo, f(x), g-dragon, henry, infinite, kcon, kcon 2013, kpop, recap, teen top, yoo seung woo
