Experience Review and Beauty & Merchandise at KCON 2016 at LA Convention Center
Last minute, Jen and I decided to grab tickets for KCON 2016 USA at the LA Convention Center. We attended for one day and it was interesting to say the least. As we are going to be traveling to Seoul, Korea in September (can't believe it's a little over a month away), we wanted to experience a glimpse at what may be in store for us and hopefully connect with beauty, fashion and lifestyle brands that we can potentially work with while in Korea. Jen herself is Korean and it's not like anything at the convention was new to her, but the process of simply getting into the convention was frustrating and the events and programming are definitely geared towards mega fans of K POP groups and celebrities.
We spent at least 3 hours in three different lines to even get into the exhibition halls; the first line outside was covered, but still hot nonetheless and we stood in that line (which snaked around 3-4 times) for 2.5 hours. For those 2.5 hours, men with ice cream carts rolled up and down ringing bells to get peoples' attention and at numerous occasions I thought I was going to lose my mind. Once inside, the staff (one lady) was trying their hardest to filter people from the outside line to the inside line and making sure to keep people who may have just gotten to the convention center from jumping in the line. The staff definitely needed back up, as the lady who was directing people from the outside into the inside line didn't even notice that Jen and I came from the outside and gave us attitude as if we had just hopped in line without waiting outside. Her excuse was 'I didn't see you two come from the outside', she needs to check herself (and her eyes), and the LA Convention center as a whole needs to anticipate for such massive crowds by hiring or scheduling extra staff. And if they can't accommodate for additional staff, KCON needs to cap the maximum amount of tickets sold, the entire waiting in the line experience was absolutely excruciating and truly ruined the mood for the day.
We could have bypassed the check in line if we knew that we needed to have our QR code and receipt printed along with our waiver, as there was a lady walking around wrist-banding 1-day ticket holders. I couldn't wrap my head around why there needed to be hard copy waivers to check in as a) that's wasteful with paper, b) how are they going to keep track of the waivers, there were thousands upon thousands of waivers thrown into cardboard boxes c) I've attended numerous events in which a waiver and release has been conducted through the ticket purchase process - KCON, please look into this as well as include clear instructions on how guests can check in (look into have people at multiple convention entrances to scan QR codes and wristband). Upon checking in, we headed to the exhibition hall entrance only to encounter another line, this one a security check point; which the security was barely checking bags. They need to be diligent in this matter, especially for a public gathering like this, seeing thatthere have been so many instances of terror attacks around the world.
After navigating through a sea of people, Jen and I made it to the beauty section and it was great to see so many brands exhibiting, but many Jen has already introduced me to; we at least got to take a GIF picture at the memebox x makeup+ booth. There were many groups of people sitting around watching others dance to popular KPOP songs which I thought was very interesting, it was like a cult following of people that knew every single word and dance move to KPOP songs.
We didn't get a chance to eat lunch earlier since we spent a majority of our time in queue, so we left the exhibition hall to find food, of course, we encountered more lines for every food place. At least we got to eat something before going back into the exhibition hall to check out the rest of the booths and merchandise offerings. We stumbled upon a really amazing 4DReplay capture booth in which a long row DSLR cameras snapped Jen and I jumping in the air (see it below). And that pretty much sums up our KCON 2016 USA experience, hopefully we can have a better experience for the next one, check out the shot of all the beauty products below (which brands were offering special promos, so this is a great way to stock up on products because you can test them in person and get your hands on the latest kbeauty innovations).
