It’s been a year since I tried to go to a BTS Concert for the very first time as a newbie and failed completely, and I can proudly say that last night marked the first time I saw them perform live after what feels like watching a million videos of them on Youtube although they were so far away that they looked like Q-Tips at times especially when they were in those gorgeous white Dior suits during their Opening act aka Dionysus. My cousin and I were trying to guess what they were going to be opening the event with since this was the very first show of their world Tour, and I felt pretty proud when I had guessed right. I had seen videos of them opening the concert with really powerful, energy filled songs such as Idol and Fire, and from their latest album, Persona, Dionysus seemed like an ideal choice. But can we talk about the opening video, or what do you call the video that they played right before the artist entrance to build anticipation and lay a foundation for the concept?! Man struggle is real for a relatively new fan, huh. Well, you know what I’m talking about. So yeah, I was informed that Kim Jones of Dior designed some of BTS’ outfits for the tour and I immediately recognized their suits with the long, fluidic shawl pieces from Dior Men FW19 collection which they looked drop dead gorgeous in, by the way. You have to see the video to believe it, well maybe not, but these suits were so captivating when they were first released on the runway this past January I did a post on it on the Tomimito Facebook (which I rarely use nowadays). And now my favorite people are wearing them for their world tour and I just couldn’t be happier. Anyhow, before I go back to bed (yes, it’s been a tiring weekend), I wanted to quickly share my experience at the concert and the ticketing process to maybe help you not go through what I went through because honestly I realized that there were a lot of things that could’ve been prevented and/or improved if I had access to better information. I honestly don’t know if they will be having a tour of such scale again (I’m not saying that they will stop being popular at some point, it’s just that entertainment is an extremely sensitive and risky business and a lot of factors can affect the future of a group), so this information may or may not help, but maybe it’s more about me getting it off my chest.. because some of the things we went through were honestly painful and sometimes just kind of dumb. I mean, the more you know, the less dumb you are, right? haha. So yeah, hear me out- I thought, I mean, I really thought that I was better equipped this time around- you know, me being an experienced ARMY by now, with my whole daily routine of checking Twitter regularly, supporting my boys by voting, never missing a Bangtan TV video or VLive- I had also prepared myself by watching a variety of Youtube videos on ticketing, and had checked out the seating chart beforehand, plus I knew that I’d be placed in a queue with a bunch of people to get to the actual ticketing screen… I also knew that I would need multiple devices and a help from people to ensure that somebody would get in…  but you know the thing is, that we were all at WORK when the tickets were released. Then I learned recently that people actually skip work that particular day so they can focus on ticketing..? which is probably why we weren’t able to succeed and had to go to a reseller to purchase the same ticket for a premium price, but yes, I just want to tell you that Vivid Tickets is legit, if you are desperate. Also, it seems like it’s okay to wait until a few weeks before the concert to buy on Ticketmaster because they actually sell third party tickets on their site which may be safer if you have trouble trusting other reselling sites. So there’s that for ticketing. As for the day of the concert, one thing I really want to say is that leave everything at home and just go. Get there early to avoid traffic, and see if you can actually get dropped off close enough to walk to the stadium because the parking is pure madness and you will not want to be stuck there. Also, feel okay to use porta potties because otherwise you will be waiting for an hour to use the restroom. We made this mistake and it made a lot of us super aggravated. As for the official tour merchandise, there are plenty of smaller shops once you get inside the stadium (past security), so just buy them there, if the line for the outside stores are hours long like it was for Rose Bowl. As for the lines to get into the stadium, there should be multiple lines for all the gates- lines should start forming a few hours before the gate opening time, so find out where the closest gate is for your seat, and go hang out in that area. If you end up not taking anything with you, you will have the luxury of entering the stadium without having to wait for hours on line through express line- this is something nobody knew about, and I regretted brining all the useless stuff for the entire 40 minutes of waiting. But yes, once you are in and the boys appear, you will forget about all the hardships you went through to get to that point, and life will start feeling great again- just wait until you see Jungkook flying and you will know what Euphoria means without having to Google it. 

Suga got swag and you can’t fight me on this.

I love the duality of this man- one moment he’s this pure child from Daegu who wanted to be a strawberry farmer and the next I see a sexy movie star with a piercing gaze. What a dangerous man.

I don’t know why Jin’s hair looks green here, but I need to see this man up close because I’m pretty sure he could be one of a very few men in the world who could possibly be intimidating due to his beauty.

I don’t have any pictures of Jungkook, Jimin, RM and J-Hope, and let me explain why- so you already know that I became a fan because of Jimin. I think when I saw that he had appeared on the stage, my brain couldn’t really register what was happening because he was still so so far away and despite having paid to be there and gone through all the stuff I listed above, I was still watching him on the screen. Like, how is that really all that different, you know. So I was just trying to get a better glimpse of him but when that failed, I just started watching the silhouettes of his dancing. and then Fake Love happened and his tattoo showed and abs and the rest of his upper body.. and everyone kind of died and I’m not sure what happened afterwards. It’s like when Jungkook was singing Euphoria in his ethereal pink outfit and then this stick appeared out of nowhere and I thought he was going to be pole dancing for a second and then the next thing I knew, he was flying. I mean, like, can a girl get a break? It was crazy, I tell ya. I mean, like, J-Hope does these extreme, expert-level-only hip thrusts during Baepsae and although so many of us had seen it already from the videos of Love Yourself Tour, we were still not ready, right? Like when the rapine, RM, Suga, and J-Hope, all appeared in Dior’s high end streetwear that was like the best streetwear stuff I had seen in years despite my not being a huge fan of the style, and began spitting rhymes for Tear with J-Hope killing his part at the end.. how was I supposed to take pictures? How? With RM, my cousin kept saying how she loves him when he raps and I agreed and I just kind of wanted to hear how he sounded live in person (although it was through a mic) but he also looked good so I think my mind was sort of not 100% there, especially with the girl behind me constantly hitting my head with the Army Bomb strap and screaming “Min Yoongi, I love you” until she couldn’t do it anymore. Also the guy next to me was sweaty and kind of smelled funny until someone started releasing gas on top of it and it smelled like rotten egg for a good five minutes. All in all, it was definitely an eventful, memorable day, and a lesson learned is that we are going to the floor next time no matter what. Actually, without having to pay a premium price- so we’ll see about that. I think it would be greatly helpful if international ARMY shared information with each other though. Please feel free to leave comments of connect with me on Twitter or Instagram @tomimito and let me know what’s on your mind, or if you have any questions, or have something you want to share with me! Thanks for reading!

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