Jamsil Olympic Stadium LYSY 2019. Clear directions. Colourful arrows on the floor and everywhere. Lots of multilingual ushers and staff. Floor and 1F was raffled (one entry per army account). Phone cameras not allowed until the flashlight event.
It was very different then!
I went to HOTS and Run Seokjin the final, and it’s obvious to me that the goyang and Incheon concert organisation was a lot shabbier than LYSY 2019 at Jamsil Olympic stadium. Back then, we even had colourful arrows pointing directions for armys going to different floors. Proper barricades. Smooth crowd control. It was so professional.
Idk what changed. But I also eventually concluded that with the collective experience of workers in Incheon and goyang, the organizer could still skate past without incident. But this totally falls apart when they got tested in Busan, because local ground staff don’t have the same experience from other major cons. There isn’t a big pool of bilingual/trilingual locals or volunteers. The infrastructure is immature and underdeveloped and ill-equipped to handle such a huge crowd. The organizer should have taken this more seriously.
Anyway, no offence to karmys but I still find the way venues have so little liability and responsibility for crowd control (in their own territory) ridiculous. Stadiums should be able to pass on their crowd management know-how without depending on external vendors. But I’m not interested in debating korean system or laws.
I too, hope that k-armys don’t think I-armys are all crazy. Because it’s normal for us to expect venues and local promoters (usually this doesn’t mean an artist’s agency) to be the ones in charge of safety and crowd control.