Concert Review: Krazy K-Pop Super Concert Brought a Disorganized But Entertaining Event to New York

The Krazy K-Pop Super Concert took place at UBS Arena on August 26, 2023, featuring world-famous K-pop acts IVE, Shownu and Hyungwon of Monsta X, Kwon Eunbi, AB6IX, and Cravity.

While the concert itself was incredibly entertaining and the performers brought the house down with fantastic performances, the event overall was a bit chaotic and disorganized, making for a long, exhausting day at the venue.

The actual performance did not start until 7pm, a typical start time for a concert, but the fact that the meet & greet session began at 2pm, forcing patrons to arrive a full 5 hours prior to showtime, seemed a bit extreme. Since there were five artists in attendance, and technically you were able to purchase a meet & greet package for each of them, all of the meet & greets happened at different times, making the process long, tedious, and confusing.

As a member of the press, we were invited to meet IVE, and were escorted to the area where we were to wait for our turn, which streamlined the process for us, and allowed us to skip the long lines. However, I heard from many friends who attended as fans that for non-press attendees, it was very disorganized with unreasonable wait times.

The meet & greet itself was extremely quick; we were escorted in, sat in chairs in front of the group, and took a quick photo before being ushered out. The photo session was advertisted as being with groups of five people, but in reality we were forced into groups of 10.

Following the meet & greet sessions, it was unclear where we were supposed to go next for the "Stagecheck" portion of the day, a.k.a. soundcheck. We were told to "go to our seats" and assumed that meant our assigned seat on our ticket, later to find out that we would all be filed into the floor section to watch the Stagecheck. I only learned that from following a crowd of people headed in that direction. It seemed that the venue staff was unclear as to what exactly was going on as well.

The Stagecheck itself was a great time, giving us more opportunities to see our favorite artists up close. Each artist performed two songs, some with full choreography and others just standing on stage and interaction with the fans. I have been to soundchecks for other shows before and it's typically a very quick thing, but this one definitely felt like fans got their money's worth.

Following the Stagecheck, we had a bit of time before the show, and a dance crew took the stage to hype up the crowd. They performed to a mix of popular K-pop songs, successfully eliciting screams from the waiting audience.

Which brings me to the fact that the place was maybe half full. I felt badly for the performers, as it was no fault to them, and clearly a reflection of poor marketing on the part of the show's promoters. It was disheartening as a fan to look out and see huge sections almost completely empty, and I'm sure it was even harder for the artists to see.

However, each performer did an incredible job despite any other issues with the event itself. The set opened with Cravity, who I had recently seen at KCON LA and have also recently fallen in love with. Those kids are incredible performers and know how to command the stage, especially as the show's opener. They performed fan favorites "My Turn", "Groovy", and "Boogie Woogie" among others.

Another strange part of this show in particular was the mid-set interviews with each artist. After the performer's first song or two, the MCs would come on stage and conduct a brief interview, which felt extremely forced and awkward. The audience, as well as the artists, all seemed uncomfortable. A piece of advice if there is ever a Krazy K-Pop Super Concert Part 2, please cut the interviews.

Following Cravity was AB6IX, who I admit I knew the least amount about going into this show, but I was sufficiently impressed with their set, and had one of their songs in my head for the rest of the night.

Kwon Eunbi was up next, a former member of the now-disbanded girl group IZ*ONE. She debuted as a solo artist in 2021, and this marked her debut solo performance in the USA. She performed her songs "The Flash", "Underwater", and "Glitch", among others, and was accompanied onstage by cute, bubbly dancers that followed her around. Eunbi also fell victim to the awkward interview session, especially when asked a question about "reverse migration" which elicited many head scratches from the audience.

The fourth performance of the night was from girl group IVE, who were one of the performances I was most looking forward to in the night. They did not disappoint! With a non-skip discography (in my opinion), the girls could have performed anything and I would have been content, but they brought out "I Am", "Kitch", "Eleven", "Love Dive", and "After Like", a sampling of their title tracks.

Finally, Shownu and Hyungwon, the newly debuted unit of Monsta X, took the stage. As a longtime fan of Monsta X, I have been loving watching this unit debut and promote with their title track "Love Me A Little". I also recently saw them at KCON, and was eager to enjoy another performance of theirs. They also performance Monsta X songs "Who Do You Love?" and "Wildfire" in addition to a few B-sides from their debut unit album.

Following the concert was the "Send-Off" session, which, for those unfamiliar with this K-pop term, means waving goodbye to the artists as they prepare to leave the venue. After being ushered into a hallway behind the stage, and waiting for quite some time, we got to greet Eunbi as she departed, before being told that the rest of the Send-Off was cancelled. No word was said as to why this happened, but I'm sure the concert's promoters will be getting some angry emails from fans who want refunds, and I don't blame them.

While this unfortuante end did put a damper on what was already a bit of a disorganized event, I try to keep focused on the performances themselves, and how much fun I had during the concert. After all, that's what's most important.

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Photo Credit: UBS Arena/Dennis DaSilva

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