Currently straying away from my Rome posts for now, but don't worry I'll be back! But first, let's talk about the recent MYNAME concert held at O2 Academy Islington in London on the 10th of September. Why is this so significant? Well, to a fellow K-Pop fan like myself, it wouldn't be right to not talk about my experience working backstage and behind the scenes of the concert! Let's get started...

For starters, I did not expect to be running around as much as I did, but in a way that's my exercise done for the month aha! I was already in London for 9-10AM to meet the concert promoter, the staff and other people at the hotel. Who would of thought that as soon as I walked up to the hotel, the MYNAME members would casually be standing around outside the entrance. What did I do? Casually walk in through the entrance and sit down and wait for the concert promoter to meet me - I actually arrived early for once haha! After, we finally met, the members went off to London with the photographer to complete a photoshoot whilst I went to meet the staff with the promoter. I got to meet the concert agent I met from the HISTORY concert in February - I was so surprised he recognised me! He asked me if I knew Japanese, as he knows I don't speak Korean, but I could only say I understood some (thank god for anime, Japanese dramas and Korean dramas).

TIP #1 - Knowing multiple languages can draw to your advantage

(From my experience, I've learnt that it's quite difficult to do a job like this when you're limited to speaking the language which is why I've decided to start learning Korean and possibly Japanese.)

After breakfast, everyone began to get ready, whilst I ran to do some small jobs. I won't go into too much detail because well... Let's just say it's not too necessary ahahaha... But anyways, I ended up taking a bus later to Oxford Circus as the Japanese staff were interested in shopping in Oxford Street. We later returned to organise where to eat lunch, and sort out the timings for the day.

Let's say the food plans didn't go as well as they should have... The MYNAME members were very interested in watching the football match so they ended up going to a pub by the hotel to watch Manchester United play Manchester City. Most of the Korean staff stayed with them, whilst the Japanese staff and the photographer joined me to eat lunch nearby.

TIP#2 - Make sure that if you separate as a group, that you know whereabouts everyone is located

(Not going to lie, I was slightly worried because I didn't want to lose track of the members however as it is a foreign country it was unlikely they would go off to places they don't know, so they more or less stayed by the hotel which was handy!)

As everyone returned to the hotel, I had to work out the best time to call the cars so we could arrive at the venue at a reasonable time so the members could do sound checks and get ready. Whilst using my limited Korean, I managed to converse with the staff and members - I did stress out in a way because I was worried people wouldn't arrive on time, and some of the Japanese staff came down quite late. Originally, we were meant to split into 2 cars, all staff in one car, whilst I accompanied the MYNAME members to the venue however... It didn't work out that way... Fortunately, we managed to get there all in the right place.

TIP#3 - When struggling to communicate, attempt to use hand signals to assist you

(I found this quite helpful when I was trying to direct the Korean staff to certain places or explain certain situations. I have to thank some of the MYNAME members, such as Insoo for speaking some English to me to help me out aha!)

I'm going to be honest, when you don't know what to say it can be quite awkward... I was sitting in the car thinking what I could say, and I ended up just conversing with the driver. The driver even played the radio to fill the awkward silence. One thing is for sure, I was most worried about the members arriving at the venue in one piece. From my previous experience, we've had K-Pop fans run over to the members, so I made sure to stand in front to help assist the situation and lead them. I totally felt like one of the those managers who take the lead, with my umbrella - trust the British weather...

Once we arrived, I've never felt so relieved. I was exhausted but the day had barely begun. We still had the concert to go and we had a lot of preparations left to complete. Seeing my friends/family working alongside me definitely gave me a boost considering I was mainly working independently throughout the day. Thanks to Tracey and Aneeqa for the hugs! Before I went in, I decided to check out the queue line to see any familiar faces and meet my friends, Shirley and Jacky who were assisting with queue management. The queue was quite long considering the concert didn't start until 7PM and we arrived around 4PM.

My new brother, Chaejin from MyName! わたしの男, 채진. 😎👍

A photo posted by Steve (@kpopsteve) on Sep 10, 2016 at 6:26pm PDT