One of the hardest things about being a K-pop fan in America, is the lack of opportunities to see the korean pop idols perform live on stage. So whenever an event comes around like Verizon’s APAHM (Asian Pacific American Heritage Month) Tour, the anticipation and excitement in the fan community is truly something unique. After a successful APAHM tour run last year with Korean rapper and b-boy Jay Park, Verizon has brought the tour back again this year– featuring Korean pop group B.A.P (An acronym which stands for Best, Absolute, Perfect). Since Verizon announced the tour dates last week, fans everywhere (including me) have been patiently waiting for the tickets to go on sale for our chosen tour city. As I reside in the D.C. area, I was able to get tickets to see B.A.P live on May 14th at Warner Theater DC. However, these tickets were incredibly hard to allocate, mostly because of a huge ticket sales FAIL on the part of Verizon.
The tickets for both the DC and New York shows were to go on sale today at 12 PM sharp, and were (seemingly) able to be purchased from LiveNation and PowerHouseLive, both popular websites for ticket sales. However, though the New York tickets went on sale when they were supposed to, the DC tickets were not released until 7 PM tonight– with NO information or warning from Verizon. After seeing at noon that the link for the DC tickets was not working, I was able to visit the Facebook event and see that everyone else was experiencing the same issue. With no response from Verizon, or the tour’s official Facebook page, I was able to get in contact with Warner Theater directly to find out the problem. It seems that although Verizon said the tickets would be on sale at noon today, Warner Theater didn’t know if they would even sell within the next week. I was told over the phone that the performance was not confirmed yet for the venue, as the two parties (tour and theater) had not yet signed the agreement that would get the show going. Not to mention, the B.A.P concert was not even listed on the Warner’s site and was completely absent from their calendar. More confusion was added to the situation, when the website PowerHouse seemed to be selling tickets to the show whether it was confirmed or not. Warner Theater, however, is a LiveNation exclusive venue. This means that they only accept LiveNation tickets. Yet, a few hours later Verizon decided to post in the Facebook event that these ‘illegitimate’ tickets were indeed ‘legit’. Out of all the concerts I’ve been too and the process to acquire the tickets, this was certainly the worst. Nonetheless, after conversing and venting with fellow fans of the group, the tickets finally went on sale at 7 PM and I was able to grab the last 3 tickets for the show…
This was an incredibly stressful experience. I love B.A.P and K-pop, but Verizon’s lack of communication and messaging almost destroyed my chances of getting to see one of my favorite performers live. I truly hope they fix this in the future, or a new sponsor is found for this tour because Verizon simply doesn’t seem to have the professionalism and brain power to properly organize a national tour. What’s really sad, is that these types of situations are not unusual for K-pop concerts coming to America. Back in November when Big Bang came to New York, 50 tickets were withheld even after the concert was said to have ‘sold out’. These tickets were then later released, adding to the confusion.
Anyways, I am still excited to see B.A.P perform and will definitely be taking pictures and video if I can! Also, there is a meet and greet that has yet to be announced~ look out for the dates! I will post as soon as the information is released!
P.S. This experience just reinforced why I am glad to be an AT&T user. Haha.
NOTE – I may have a video about this that goes more in depth:) will post if it goes up!
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Kpop,
Music and tagged
apahm tour,
b.a.p,
bang,
concert,
kpop,
livenation,
tickets,
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verizon,
warner theater dc,
washington dc,
zelo
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