SuperM performed in London for the first time on February 28 at the O2 Arena. They announced the European dates for their We Are the Future Tour in late 2019 and tickets went on sale January 17.

As soon as I heard the news, I immediately decided to go for the chance to see my bias, Mark, in concert as I previously missed out on the opportunity to see him during NCT 127’s Neo City – The Origin Tour in London last year. I wasn’t going to miss out again so I set the date to buy the tickets in my calendar and waited patiently for them to go live.

The Ticket-Buying Process: A Nightmare from Hell

Little did I know, getting the tickets would be so much more difficult than I could imagine. I’ve had experience purchasing tickets online and in-store before but those were for concerts in Malaysia so I was nervously anticipating how it would go. I knew how competitive K-Pop fans can be and tickets typically sell out in a matter of minutes, which I expected would happen in this case as SuperM only had two dates listed for their European tour; London and Paris.

I asked my friends who had experience for advice. My friend, Caristia, described buying tickets online as a “bloodbath” and advised me to make sure I have at least five available devices, a strong WiFi connection, and to make an account with the ticketing site beforehand so that I can save my payment information in advance in order to save time.

The concert had five ticket categories, each selling for £68, £88, £108, £138, £148, respectively. The day that the tickets went on sale was also the day before I had to fly back to the UK for the new semester. It was truly hectic and I had so many errands to run and not to mention I had scheduled to meet a friend for dinner. I thought I would be able to get my tickets before meeting my friend but I faced many difficulties with the website.

Firstly, I queued to enter the site for hours and when I finally managed to do so, the site showed “There are no tickets available. Continue to check back as additional tickets may become available for purchase at a later time.” As per the instructions, I kept refreshing until I got my hands on a seat.

After lots of clicking, I finally managed to secure one and I hastily went to check out within the time limit but then I faced another challenge as the payment wouldn’t go through. I tried every single payment method I had and attempted multiple times and still, nothing would work. I couldn’t understand what was wrong, so after many failed attempts, I contacted the ticket seller, AXS, who thankfully replied back almost immediately and helped me solve the issue.

What I Did to Prepare for the Concert

After many difficulties, I finally ended up purchasing the £108 ticket. The next step was to wait patiently for the day of the concert which would be one month from then. In preparation, I bought an entirely new outfit (a neon green dress to rep NCT’s official fandom colour), new makeup, and even new nail polish. Safe to say, I planned every aspect of my life so that everything would be so perfect.

The Day of the Concert

When the actual day came, everything was so far from perfect. I woke up late, I took too long to get ready (mostly because I kept failing at applying false eyelashes), it starting pouring rain, and I got stopped at the train station for having an expired 16-25 railcard. All in all, I was off to a bad start but I didn’t let that stop me. The show must go on, after all.

Despite the torrential weather, I made it alive to the O2 Arena albeit with messed up hair and melted off makeup. The first thing I did when I got there was to line up for the merchandise counter. Despite the ridiculous prices, I purchased a light-stick as a souvenir. I was hoping to purchase more but I couldn’t reason spending that much money.

Since I was a bit behind schedule, I immediately entered the venue to look for my seat. As I waited for the concert to begin, I met up with my friend, Caristia, who I mentioned earlier.

I was so nervous that my hands were shaking as getting to the location was so stressful for me that I was almost ready to get the day over with but as soon as the lights dimmed, I was buzzing with excitement once again.

SuperM performed the five songs on their first self-titled mini album: Jopping, I Can’t Stand The Rain, 2 Fast, Super Car, and No Manners, as well as other songs such as Dangerous Woman and their solos: Taemin performed Danger and Goodbye, Ten performed Dream In a Dream and New Heroes, Baekhyun performed Betcha and UN Village. Taeyong, Lucas, Mark, and Kai performed the unreleased GTA, Make That Bass Go Boom, Talk About, and Confession, respectively.

During the performance of their first song, I Can’t Stand The Rain, the crowd as well as the artists themselves were stunned as a technical difficulty occurred in the middle of it. The song cut out unexpectedly and SuperM was forced to halt their performance until the situation could be resolved. In a matter of a few minutes, the song restarted and we were able to witness a second performance of I Can’t Stand The Rain.

Other than that, the rest of the concert went by smoothly. I was anticipating Mark’s solo performance the most as I had mentioned that he is my bias of the group. My favourite part of the entire concert was unexpectedly Kai’s solo performance. I had always known Kai was a talented dancer as I had been a fan of EXO for a long time before this but seeing his charisma on stage truly solidified my opinion of him.

By the end of the night, I concluded that that day was one of the best days of my life. You can watch the videos I took from the concert below!