Male group JYJ (Jaejoong, Yoochun, Junsu) showed off powerful tickets power on the foreign fans, and once again proved that they’re still the central point of Hallyu wave.
In commemoration of the release of their worldwide album ‘The Beginning’, JYJ announced to conduct the large scale two days concert on last 27th and 28th at Seoul Jamsil Olympic Stadium entitled ‘JYJ Worldwide Concert in Seoul’.
There were around 3000 international fans came visiting South Korea in order to watch the concert from Japan, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and other Asian countries, while there were also fans coming from United States and Europe. Due to these fans’ visit, the local tourism market in November finally got the long-awaited boost.
JYJ concert was even mentioned in a tourism industry magazine prior to the D-day, “There are expected as many as 20,143 Japanese visitors will come to South Korea.
JYJ’s Seoul concert that will be held on November 27th and 28th is the large factor.” Another tourism official said, “Out of 4,113 people, at least 2,500 are ‘Hallyu Tourists’ who come to watch JYJ’s concert.” The group’s immense popularity can be proven on these statements.
In fact at the day of concert, five hours before the concert started a lot of fans from all over nations already gathered at Jamsil Olympic Stadium. There were fans especially from Japan, China, Thailand, Philippines, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and many other fans from around the world were wandering around at the venue area, transforming the concert event to be an international festival instead. Inside the concert venue, there were also guidances written in China and Japan, added even more feeling of watching an international event.
A travel agency official who was spotted at the scene, commented, “People who are watching this concert has been the cause of the growing number of tourists in South Korea.” and “JYJ have always proven their power as Hallyu stars, they’ve been doing this great job from all these times.”
He also revealed, “Due to the flock of tourists in Seoul, it was really difficult to do advance reservation at downtown hotels (around the date). Probably through this concert a ripple economic effects values about ten billion won would have occured.”
In meantime, it was only a month ago these JYJ stage performances received a comment as “JYJ activities must give bad influence to Hallyu.” from Korean Federation of Pop Culture (in short, Munsan) who sent requests to local and cable broadcasters to refrain from distributing the appearance of JYJ on their programs, thus stood in negative position.
Munsan sent a memorandum to each local station on last October 11th, “(JYJ’s TV appearances, etc) would throw cold water to South Korea’s cultural Hallyu wave and the country image as a whole.” and also, “Our popular Hallyu wave culture will walk on degradation (due to JYJ)” as they pointed out.
However, looking from the result which JYJ achieved this month in Seoul, as well as other 6 Asian cities in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, China, and also 3 major cities in United States through the group’s previous showcase tour that successfully mobilized thousands number of international fans had become evidences to put the weak published claim of Munsan to the ground, also giving proof of the group’s huge ticket power.
credit: todaykorea
trans: sharingyoochun.net