KCON Australia 2017 - Platinum review #LetsKCON

I've been procrastinating on this for days (much like some of my other responsibilities).

So let me review KCON Australia 2017, from when the news was first announced until when the last day of KCON ended.

Just quickly checking on Twitter, the new of KCON possibly coming to Australia was out around March 3rd... wow that was a long time ago!

I almost forgot about this, but there was an oztourleaks tweet about the date of KCON! And they got it right wow, the accuracy of their insider sources!

We didn't hear any confirmation the event was going till about August 3rd. So for 5 months we had so many "is kcon a scam?" tweets going around. Only that day we finally got confirmation of KCON dates and the Ticketek selling link.

On August 6th, a teaser photo was posted, and many worked it out to the MONSTA X. Then the next day, WJSN, MONSTA X and SF9 were confirmed. After that, Girls' Day were the teaser, with the next day confirming them as well as VICTON and PENTAGON. August 9th - UP10TION was teased, but we did not expect WANNA ONE to also be confirmed!

I wasn't even sure I was going to KCON until Wanna One was announced.

And to seal the deal, I was even more shook when EXO was confirmed, on the 10th of August.

The same day, the breakdown of ticket prices and concert layout were revealed. Honestly at the time, I thought P1 was the most worth it, but after that bombshell that was announced that EXO were coming, I decided to risk going for platinum. I was going to go all out for one of my favourite groups. I'd hope there'd be plenty of perks, and I was risking the fact that EXO was most likely to not even do hi-touch. Yeah, I decided to go platinum for the experience, and if it was really bad, I know next time to go P1.

But then the FAQ came out, and turns out platinum and P1 combo got the exact same number of hi-touch guarantees. Platinum got no double ups on benefits, whereas all other levels who buy combo tickets do. So the only thing that distinguished platinum from P1 was the soundcheck, goodie bag and early entry + more audience guarantees. Also the lineup - who was on what day.

Ticket presales were the NEXT DAY 12pm, only for combo tickets. Luckily I was at UNSW and was able to snag my platinum tickets, which sold out incredibly fast. Though there were also issues with getting P1 combos, which were very popular too. They eventually sold out, and a lot of people settled for P2... only for KCON to later release more P1 tickets. Tip: never settle for the 2nd best ticket - they tend to release more tickets for kpop concerts, but if they don't then try a reseller, there's always someone who will suddenly not be able to make the concert (but of course, there are scammers so always best to buy directly from ticket sales if you can).

That really sucked for a lot of people who settled with P2, since suddenly P1 was available (and actually, still available up till the day of the concert -_-)

14th of August was the general sale for single and other combo tickets.

All seemed well until actually receiving the tickets themselves via mail. Luckily the platinum tickets came fine in the mail - they were worth $1000 after all! But a P1 single ticket I bought for someone never came at all in the mail. Had to go to Ticketek on the Thursday before KCON to get it printed. I wasn't the only one - many others had their tickets never arrive and had to get them printed at a Ticketek outlet.

There was no useful information until A MONTH after general ticket sales. On September 14th, we finally got information about the convention itself. The day after, a new grade of tickets, P5, were released, super cheap $99 tickets! The same day, the one thing every one wanted to know - the engagement schedule, was released, which confirmed EXO weren't doing any engagements. Further details about queueing and entry for the engagements were released.

What pissed a lot of people off was that KCON was offering a lucky person who bought a P5 ticket a FREE upgrade to platinum as well as a signed CD set. WTF? Platinum doesn't even get signed CDs?!

18th of September we find out that Kevin Woo (ex U-KISS) is the host of the pre-show (which we had no idea what it was about), with the sponsor HotelsCombined, and how the scratch-it engagement cards worked. Oh, and merchandise while we were at it too.

Probably the most important information, the check-in, was finally announced - but we did NOT expect that there would be a Thursday ie. day before KCON check-in. And that was announced the NIGHT before the Thursday check-in. WTF? That made me change my plans drastically. Also it really annoyed a lot of those who were flying over to Sydney who wouldn't even BE in Sydney at the time. There was no confirmation from KCON whether we could check-in for other people either. So we had to risk trying it.

Wow this post is really long already, but that should cover almost everything before check-in. Some posts might be incorrect in terms of dates as KCON did delete and repost a lot of the posts so maybe I have the original dates wrong.

Thursday 21st
I managed to pick up the ticket at Ticketek near my uni that did not get sent to me. I studied at uni, then did my math test, and dashed the hell out of there once it was done. I met a friend at Central and got her ticket to check-in. Made my way to Olympic Park station for check-in, waited a little bit for a quick meetup to pass someone an item that I sold to them, walked over, did another quick meetup, then went to the very empty platinum check-in line. The P1 line was very, very long.

At platinum check-in you just had to pass them your ticket, they crossed your name off the list and gave you the all important wristband (not made out of paper!!! it was a cotton kinda material) and a small packet containing all your scratch it benefits - 2 hi-touch guarantee, 3 audience guarantee, both days of red carpet & soundcheck cards.

I didn't check in any of my friend's P1 tickets yet, but I found another friend and sat down and scratched the 2 lots of platinum scratch its I had since I also checked in for a friend - and we both got these:

Luckily, you can check-in for others, you just had to quote the person's name who bought the tickets.

So it turns out if you check-in at a similar time to other people, you get the same lot of cards. That was really frustrating. So KCON didn't really mix up the cards that well, people got the same cards in batches.

I was lucky that while sitting down, I managed to trade my UP10TION hi-touch to Cosmic Girls/WJSN hi-touch!

I finally went to the P1 line and ran into another friend from Melbourne! We got our cards together, and scratched them, and started trading them. Luckily, and oh so very lucky, someone wanted to trade away their Wanna One for Cosmic Girls, and a friend notified me and I RAN THE HELL TO THEM to trade! Woohoo! I got my Wanna One hi-touch :D

Anyway P1 line they just cared about having a name for the tickets, whereas platinum were a bit more careful about showing your ticket and making sure it's yours before giving you the benefits. The P1 check-in ladies definitely weren't as careful imho.

Luckily by the end of the day we managed to get Wanna One hi-touch for all our friends that wanted it! We happily went to dinner and passed along their benefits and did a mass trading of audience cards! Since P1 got 1 audience guarantee and 1 chance, only 1 out of all our group who got P1 got something out of their chance, and every one else got sorry.

Also this day we got last minute advice from KCON in their Facebook post and via email. I think KCON had been replying to some people's messages on messenger and the concert times were announced to be 8-10pm, but I think only from the email they sent that they officially confirmed the times. Not sure if Ticketek had the times up or not.

Friday 22nd
I got to KCON around 9:30am and met with a friend and we walked there together. It was already quite hot. Got a notification that KCON were selling signed albums in the convention. People already started lining up for the convention around 10am. I started lining up too but there was already a massive line. Security were removing people to go to cloak their bags. I don't think anyone truly had any idea about where the cloaking was, but it was next to the check-in tent. So I got kicked out of line after lining up for half an hour and went to cloak my bag, waited ANOTHER half an hour around to get my bag cloaked, then lined up back into the convention line and the line was even longer. Luckily I got in within half an hour since many people were booted off the line for having a large bag. Backpacks, no matter what size, had to be cloaked.

So remember the email mentioned above? I think a lot of people assumed that was for the concert only, but nope it was for the entire convention, those rules. Nothing was really made clear to us to be honest.

Anyway, there were a lot of people inside the convention. But there wasn't really much. All I could see was a stage, a dancing area, the KCON merchandise booth, KOFICE booth and another brand booth. The KCON merchandise booth was so long. I think I lined up for another half an hour and I bought 4 Wanna One individual member signed albums. They were $40 each. Some bands costed $30, and others $40. Pentagon was the first album to sell out. I regret not buying a Wanna One sticker for $6 though. And not buying any more Wanna One signed albums, but none of the ones I got had Woojin :( Luckily I sold 2 of the 4, and I'm keeping the other 2 for trade later once we all get our signed albums from Mwave. Just find it funny how the Wanne One signed albums were ready for KCON but not Mwave. Maybe they were extras?

Anyway I left the convention after buying the albums around 12pm. Luckily friends helped me store my bag (love you all)! I started to hand out my free transparent Suho pcs for only like 45 minutes (sorry it was so short!) before I had to go line up for Girls' Day hi-touch. The day went by really quickly by that point. A friend and I managed to line up with another friend, and we got into the front row when we entered. Girls' Day just answered a few questions, then we had the hi-touch session. They are so small and skinny and beautiful and gorgeous up close! It went by super quick for me.

While I was in Girls' Day I found out that the Red Carpet line up started 1 hour earlier? What the heck? I thought you weren't allowed to line up until the times listed, but I'm guessing people made unofficial lines. Anyway there were separated platinum and P1 Red Carpet lines. I heard that those who weren't P1 or platinum who bought Red Carpet tickets were almost refused to be let in, I guess because of the announcement about concert entry the day before. So in a way, early entry wasn't really a benefit for platinum at all. We were all just at Red Carpet anyway and got escorted into the concert earlier.

Anyway back to Red Carpet line up - this ONE security at platinum were really incompetent and told us there will be separate platinum left and right lines, and made plat left exit the line and line up... only for it to be right at the BACK of the line wtf. The girls I was with who listened to the security were super mad, we should've just stayed put. Anyway we got paper wristbands as we entered, separating platinum right and left.

Red Carpet the artist walked on stage, posed for photos, answered a few questions and left. I did not expect EXO to come out 2nd last, before Girls' Day. After EXO legit everyone (or mostly fansites who knows) rushed to the exit. I was in the back row of Red Carpet but suddenly after the rush I ended up in like 2nd row when Girls' Day came out. We get escorted to the concert, only for security and staff to COMPLETELY mix up left and right! So platinum and P1 left were on stage right and vice versa. I ended up being in the 2nd row around. Platinum had a lot of room! They could've sold more tickets and made more money but kudos I guess... had a lot of room to move around, maybe they couldn't sell more for safety issues? Maybe we all had to have a certain amount of ground space per person? Who knows.

Not gonna talk about the concert too much actually, since this is getting too long! The concert suddenly started with cover dances by other dance crews. Anyway the pre-show with Kevin was so funny. It was literally an advert for the sponsors HotelsCombined but what he made us do was so funny. We were forced to turn our arms into the letter H and dance in that pose. I forgot the other activity whoops but the winners won a night at a hotel in Sydney for the H dance, and the other activity won a plane ticket to Korea with accomodation, so lucky.

I can't believe the concert VCR, the KCON Heroes (?) was EXO's The Power of Music themed, in terms of art concept... I cannot believe!

And I was incredibly shocked when Suho and Sehun walked onto the stage as MCs.

Suho's English... was so good... I love him...

Anyway SF9 performed first and were so good! I literally became a fan because of a cute guy (Rowoon) and how lit Fanfare was.

Pentagon were next, and they were amazing too. They started with the pinata minigame, which wasn't really a pinata, it was a spinning boomerang LMAO. The explanation about the pinata was really funny. Also they pronounced pinata as 핀아타 haha.

VICTON were next and they remind me a little of ASTRO. Also the same pinata mispronunciation!

Girls' Day were after and I was in awe honestly. I really like the girl groups that were here at KCON.

Then finally EXO! They were amazing with their interactions! Suho looked at me... he noticed me because of my Nature Republic fan... worth it. It was worth being in platinum for me just for that alone.

After the concert, we literally had to dash to join the massive line of people retrieving their bags from cloaking.

I forgot to mention, the whole day there wasn't really an announcement for goodie bags for P1 and platinum, someone had to tell me they were inside the convention (WTF) near door 10. I was NOT lining back to go into the convention just to get my goodie bag, so I decided to do it the next day.

Oh and also I don't think there was an official announcement about Kyungsoo not going or performing at KCON...


Saturday 23rd
I didn't get home till about 1am. Was so exhausted. Got up at 7am around, and left at around 8am when a friend picked me up. We picked up another friend, went to stop and get food and water, and got to Qudos at around 9:30pm by car.

We went straight for soundcheck because soundcheck was only for Saturday at 10am. Security was ridiculous for getting into soundcheck. They didn't let a girl bring in her EMPTY KCON Australia bottle from the goodie bag... wtf? She had to go and cloak it.

Anyway the soundcheck itself was terrible. We heard one MONSTA X song outside when we lined up outside the concert doors. We were finally let in in the middle of MONSTA X rehearsing a song. After that song ended, we were forced out. WTF? We bought platinum only for soundcheck for half a song?! The only good thing I guess is that we were able to collect our goodie bags right after the soundcheck as we were inside the convention and we didn't have to line up for it outside in the heat.

Because it finished so early, I was able to attend WJSN hi-touch no worries. I was so concerned about time but I made it. I luckily was able to trade and sell most of my passes before soundcheck. In the end I only wasted one VICTON hi-touch as a girl flaked on me :( I could've gotten another Girls' Day so a friend could've came to Girls' Day hi-touch with me and my other friend yesterday but I'm rambling...

Anyway WJSN was great, though only 11/13 were there. The hi-touch was really good, no security, had quite a bit of time with each member. Got to finally touch Yeonjung! Been wanting to meet I.O.I for ages, so far I've hi-touched 2/11, and met 5/11 of them I think?

After WJSN I sat around for a very long time waiting for meetups and giving out my Woojin pcs which all disappeared in 10 minutes. I need a better system honestly for giving out pcs.

So many people lined up for Wanna One hours early I believe? I heard an unofficial line was made. Anyway I went back to line up after chilling with a friend, helped hand out the Wanna One Aus banners. Sat around for ages and we got let inside earlier than expected. Wanna One came out, and no questions were asked, it was straight into the hi-touch. I got pushed a bit by security so I went by really fast I really have no recollection of it.

After leaving, I went straight for the red carpet line. THIS time security was smart enough to make 2 lines, one for platinum left and the other for platinum right. We got our wristbands and experienced hi-touch. I knew early on that Wanna One weren't doing Red Carpet, which I thought they'd do since it was after hi-touch but oh well. We got escorted into the venue and this time we were on the correct side unlike the day before.

Once again, dance covers, and another hilarious Kevin Woo HotelsCombined segment! We had to reenact what we'd do in a hotel and the winners... LOL.... were um... and the other thing was to look lovingly at a friend or something HAHA. Same prizes as yesterday.

Anyway was extremely shook when the hosts came out, they were Daniel, Daehwi and unexpectedly Minhyun!

Skipping the concert parts but today everyone said pinata correctly! Also Wanna One's pinata segment was so good. Got heaps of interactions with the boys. Wonho is fanservice king. The lucky girl who got proposed by 3 MONSTA X members I swear to god.


Overall thoughts
And so that concludes my KCON Australia platinum review! My honest thoughts are:

• Organisation needs work - information was released too late and every one was confused with what was going on.
• Platinum needed more benefits - the goodie bag had a tote, lightstick, bottle and decal. Soundcheck was too short. Early entry not really a benefit. The only thing good about it was how close we were to the stage.
• P1 is definitely the most worth it.
• I'd get P1 the next time KCON comes to Australia.
• I know KCON always is more than a day but damn... I was so tired after a day I don't mind if the next KCON was only one day.
• Convention needed more stuff. Where's all the Korean food?

Basically, platinum was not worth it in my opinion except for the fact I got amazing concert interaction with the bae, Suho.

If you manage to finish reading all this, wow you're amazing! Thank you so much for reading!