For many Torontonians, sunshine was the big long-weekend attraction, but for hundreds of K-pop superfans, the place to be was in the bowels of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre waving glow sticks and screaming in the dark.
Toronto Kpop Con is the second event focused on South Korean music and culture to hit the city this month. The event attracted over 4,000 fans, many of whom travelled from Virginia, Washington and Maryland to take in rare continental performances by pop groups VIXX, GOT7, DAY6 and GFRIEND.
The second-annual three-day event featured panel discussions, choreographed dancing, press conferences, exhibitors selling posters, beauty products and stuffed octopuses wearing ice cream cone hats, and “fanmeets” with each of the bands.
Unlike a concert, a fanmeet mixes performances with video projections, games and Q&As with the audience. On Saturday, May 21, the six-member girl group GFriend made their Canadian debut. Their performance was preceded by an intro video of the members frolicking in an impossibly green field and structured around their “school trilogy” concept. That involved dancing in kilts and short red uniform-style dresses amid neon spotlights to their own hits as well as Don’t Stop Movin’ by British pop group S Club 7.
Fans waved glowsticks in time to the beats and roared each time the group struck a pose in unison or when a member broke from line and took a brief turn at the mic. A willingness to look ridiculous is also part of a K-pop star’s job description. Between performances the girls participated in a balloon-popping contest that required them to put balloons between each other and thrust.
Bleached-out boy band DAY6 also did the balloon-popping routine the next afternoon, between playing pop-rock tunes and taking questions from giddy audience members like, “If you had to switch instruments for a show, what would you choose?”
While Toronto Kpop Con has not elicited the kind of backlash that marred the Hallyu North expo in early May, attendees had to wait in long lineups to pick up posters and get into fanmeets. On Saturday, the energy from the GFriend show carried on afterwards as a group of fans busied themselves in the downtime between scheduled sessions by doing impromptu choreography in the hallway.
kevinr@nowtoronto.com | @kevinritchie
