BEFORE I even begin, let me make a disclaimer: This article is not at all meant to diminish the efforts of promoters Jinquan Entertainment and VISM, with Loong Studio and Fei Long Wang for local support, to bring The Seungri Show: The Great Seungri Tour 2019 in Manila to the Philippines. The goal is to bring to light the efforts of fans in making sure that more people get to watch the concert.
On December 28 Loong Studio formally announced that Seungri of the Korean group Bigbang was coming on January 19 with The Seungri Show: The Great Seungri Tour 2019 in Manila at the Mall of Asia Arena. Ticketing started the following day.
A background for non-fans: Seungri is one-fifth of one of South Korea’s best-selling artists, Bigbang. Other members of the YG Entertainment group include the group’s leader, fashion icon G-Dragon, Taeyang, T.O.P and Daesung. Seungri is the youngest in the group and while the four members are in the military, he has been heavily promoting in various ways, including this concert tour. Sources said the local fans had voiced concerns about there being a short lead time for fans to buy tickets, but Seungri himself wanted to come to Manila to meet his fans.
Bigbang fans, known collectively as VIPs, began mobilizing efforts to raise funds to provide tickets to those who can’t afford it at the moment.
“The event was initially deemed not feasible according the local organizers, but the event pushed through just weeks leading to the December 28 announcement in consideration of the VIPs that Seungri wanted to meet across Asia as part of his 2019 tour expansion,” said a representative from Seungri’s fanbase GT2VI PH.
Projects related to the concert include encore banners, giveaways, VIP message boards and a donation drive for a Mall of Asia globe ad.
All of the efforts were heartwarming. Some VIPs “lent” money to strangers by paying for the tickets in advance. A lot of fans donated to the efforts of Seungri’s Philippine fanbase.
One account on Twitter bought tickets for fans, requiring just a 50-percent downpayment with the balance to be settled on or before February 15.
For a donation of at least P500 (or any amount actually), you could help toward the purchase of a ticket for a VIP or an ad on Facebook or Instagram. Most of the fan initiatives were on Twitter.
I know that many of my Twitter friends donated huge amounts of cash to the fund-raising initiatives just to make sure everything was OK, all for Bigbang and Seungri. I myself made a humble donation. Non-fans may wonder why we do this. Aside from Bigbang, it’s really about sisterhood. We have VIP sisters everywhere—from Croatia to India—and we’re bonded by a common love and respect for these five boys. By the way, Loong Studio’s media partners will also have some surprises for Philippine VIPs in the days leading to the concert. Follow @LoongStudio on Twitter for details.
For tickets, go to www.smtickets.com.
Image credits: Image from Seungri’s Instagram Account