#i had literally just woken up from a nap when i saw that dancing video and was immediately regretting being conscious again 😌

[kindahoping4forever]

The 5SOS Show Tour Stuttgart - 27 September 2023

Via 5SOS IG Story

[jimonies]

bts concert experience

hey guys so I’ve been meaning to do this for while now and I’ve finally found some time to sit and write about it ( aka it’s finals weeks and I just want to procrastinate ). Also, this is my second time rewriting this as the first time I accidently forgot to save it so I apologize for any mistakes in advance. I wanted to do this on behalf of the people who are in the future planning to go a bts concert or just want to know what it was like. Before we went, me and my sister did A LOT of research and so I hope this can help give you an idea or answer any questions. I also want to put out there this is MY experience and MY opinions, I can’t speak for anyone else's experiences. I know there will probably be different opinions on different scenarios that I’ll talk about and take it how you will. Going through this experience made me realize a lot of things about social media and how ARMY can be depicted so I hope this also gives you some insight as well and maybe clear up some things you might of heard from the concert. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the read !  

Tickets + Seating + Date 

I’ll be honest with you, me and my sister got REALLY lucky. We had been planning for GA tickets, preferably the Wednesday Sept 5th date ( Staples Center, Los Angeles ) and by some miracle we got it. I’ve learned that it doesn’t really matter how many laptops or phones you have out, it’s all luck really. We tried buying tickets for other dates like Oakland and Citifield and it didn’t matter if we only used one phone or had 20 out, it’s just the luck of the draw cause we got NONE after that first time. The day the tickets dropped, we had out two macbooks, a tablet, and 3 phones ( two samsung + old LG phone ). Ironically enough, we got both GA tickets on the LG phone ( I always joke with my sister that it was the power of that btsxlg collab that got us tickets !! ). 

Camping Out Experience

Both me and my sister had specifically chose Wednesday because we knew camping out was going to be mess. We are fortunate enough that we are on the quarter system for our universities so school or work really wasn’t an issue for us luckily. I would recommend trying to get the first day possible if the concert is multiple days because it can gets messy on the days after. My sister was in a group chat on twitter so she was able to have some of her mutuals hold our spots until our rotation turn. The girls were really nice about the whole thing so we took the graveyard shift the night before the concert. 

I know there was a lot of concern regarding camping out in downtown los angeles and let me tell you I was scared shitless at first. My sister goes to university in LA so she’s more accustomed to the city life. I on the other hand am a ball of anxiety and you have to force me to the leave the house. I was so completely terrified of being out there the whole night but I knew if I was with me sister, I would be okay. 

Parking was a pretty tricky thing. We had paid for overnight parking inside a parking garage station in downtown and then took an uber to the campsite. As for what we brought, since we were only there overnight we packed pretty minimally. We brought two folding chairs, a container of fruit, a jug of water, small purses with extra chargers + wallets + pepper spray, blankets, and we dressed in layers! It surprisingly wasn’t as cold as I though it would be !

We were lined up across the parking garage for LA Live. Out of privacy reasons, I won’t say our exact numbers but we were within the first 30 people in line so we were basically in the front. We signed in with the girl who was coordinating the line and got an approximate number on our hand. It’s kind of set up in way where you’re in groups and clusters. I say per group it’s about five to eight people at most. Across the street in the parking garage was a bathroom in clear sight open for us to use, less than a four minute walk! I was actually really pleasantly surprised with how clean and stocked the bathrooms were! They only closed for one hour during the night to clean it but other than that, there was staff around that had it opened and cleaned. 

Let me tell you, the age range for armys are really diverse. There were actually a lot of parents with their kids so I felt really comforted by the fact that there were a lot of adults around us! Like I mentioned, everyone was in groups or at least with one other person, I don’t think I saw a person alone. Most of the people in the front that I met and talked to were college students ranging from the average age of 18-24 which makes sense when you think about it. There was also a lot of security around the area. I know people are going to have different opinions on this but like I mentioned, this is based on my personal experience. There was a security guard who would walk and patrol the fence behind us and then there was a cop car that would pass by every 45-60 minutes.

Most armys that were around us were really chill and calm. For the most part, everyone kept to themselves and were pretty kind, offering water or snacks here and there. Like I said, a lot of the people around us were college students so most were on their phones chilling or I saw a couple of people doing homework on their laptops. I can’t speak for what was it like the previous days but even early in the night, there wasn’t much going on. I know in like videos and stuff you see people dancing around or doing routines or singing and playing bts music but it was literally just a bunch of us sitting in chairs on our phones and quietly chatting amongst ourselves! It really sucked though because we got made fun of...a lot. So many people would pass by in cars slowly with their windows down and just record us laughing. I think I stopped counting after 31 cars. No one said anything or made a big deal, but you could feel the silent hurt and annoyance from everyone. It was gross having older men or teenagers drive by and scream at us and laugh. Eventually though it did stop. I would say around 10 or maybe 11 people starting going into their tents or around their blankets for the night. IT WAS SO QUIET! Most people took turns on sleeping shifts and this is when they brought out more patrol cars. I’m a night owl at heart so I told my sister to nap and I would stay up. Even though I wasn’t scared anymore, I was still uncomfortable fully falling asleep so I simply stayed awake for the night. I know some people were annoyed but I felt so much reassurance and happiness from this one cop. Earlier in the night, he was all excited and he strolled by playing fire and dope it was the funniest thing! You could tell he was genuinely excited for us and not mocking us. In my section, there was one girl to my left who was awake for her group and another to my right awake and everyone else was knocked out for the most part. When he saw everyone go to sleep, he and his partner passed back and forth in their patrol car. He noticed I was stayed awake and every hour or so, he would slow down in front of me and shoot me a thumbs up asking if I was okay. He had probably noticed how fucking terrified I was but without fail, every hour he came to check up on us. 

Now. This is where all the chaos begins. I understand that there were some things circulating around twitter and how some of these things went down and I don’t know everything that happened but I’ll tell you my experience on this. 

Around 3 in the morning, news stations starting showing up. My sister had woken up around this time from her nap so we watched in curiosity on how this was going to go down. Listen I know I sound like a broken record but, I can’t speak for all but I will speak for myself.

Camera men with cameras and lights and one or two male and I think later in the morning a female reporter showed up. I know me camping out there kind of subjects myself to the open and leaves me vulnerable but nonetheless, it was still kind of creepy and invasive. There’s all these sleeping girls (and a couple of guys! ) on the floor or in chairs and then you have camera men come by and record us. I know what I was getting into by camping out and I knew this was bound to happen but I know a lot of the people around me felt the same. Me and my sister didn’t want to be recorded or interviewed so we hid under our blankets. Despite seeing that we didn’t want to be recorded, they passed by us numerous times so yeah, there’s a lot of footage out there now of me under a blanket lmao. Since me and my sister were some of the few people awake, they would come over to see if we wanted to be interviewed but we just thew ourselves under the blanket. Ironically enough, the two girls next to me ended up getting interviewed. The media...they really have a way on portraying things to the way they want. I was really proud of the two girls next to me and they handled the questions really well. They tried to make us seem kinda crazy, maybe crazy isn’t the right word but they were trying to paint this exotic story of us. The girls politely disregarded them, telling them that we were here because we love bts and because they have a strong message and they’re worth waiting for. I got to talk to the girls afterwards and they were so terrified of what people were going to say, not only by media but by armys on twitter cause they wanted to do our fandom justice and show media that we are not they depict us to be. As it got around 4 to 6 in the morning, more people were getting interviewed, especially those in the front of the line. Look, I understand how media works and the compelling part of a story okay but it’s just ironic cause they came out here hoping for screaming fangirls but you could tell they were so annoyed and disappointed by how anticlimactic we were acting. I can’t tell you the amount of times a camera man would walk down the line, having to retake the shot because we weren’t screaming or acting hyped enough. It wasn’t that we were trying to be cool or like downplay how amazing it was but like, it was 6 in the morning. We were tired! A little cranky and annoyed from being woken up from lights and cameras! We just wanted our wristbands! We’re not here to be interviewed or be on tv, we just wanted to see our boys lol. This is not to say all interviews were bad or they were malicious, some people looked happy and excited to be interviewed but I can at least tell you from the groups around us, we were just trying out best to stay in our lanes. It was kinda funny though cause my dad texted me that he had been up watching the news watching me and sister hide under the blankets like the loser we were lol. Eventually we gave up and just let them record us so now my dad has a video of us waving to the fam lol.

This went on from 3 in the morning to until we got our wristbands which was sometime around noon or a little before. Not gunna lie, it’s a little fuzzy now that’s it’s been a while and I can’t remember the exact times from this point on but I’ll try my best from checking old text messages. I know for sure by ten we were all put in a line in number order. Also, I want to mention the trash situation ! The girls in the front did such a good job with the clean up. Next to the fences they had trash bags for us and someone would come every couple of hours or so to throw it out !

I know I’m going to get some mixed reactions on this but I was so happy with the staff running the line. There was this staff lady in the front who was not putting up with anyones bullshit !! There were girls who were trying to cut the line and start a new line and try having groups swarm in but the lady was on top of everything at least for the people in the front of the line. There were people sending them back to the end. SHE WAS A SAVIOR AND STAPLES CENTER NEEDS TO GIVE HER A RAISE BECAUSE SHE HANDLED THAT SO WELL. We lined and and got put in this other queue where after waiting for everyone to line up again, we got our wrist bands. Sorry if this is vague but it was honestly just a lot of standing around. I’m just so damn impressed that SO MANY PEOPLE GOT IN A DECENTLY UNIFIED LINE. YALL DID GREAT SWEETIES ! Amongst this so many things were going on. I do remember a Korean station coming up and filming us and again, we got in trouble for not being loud enough so they refilmed us again :/ They told us that once we got our wrist bands if we were’t planning on stayed for day 2 to pack up our things and leave which most people did. You best believe we yeeted tf outta there! We called an uber, drove back to the parking garage to get our car and headed back to my sisters apartment to grab something to eat and change. Admittedly, it wasn’t a lot of time to get ready. I can’t remember exactly but I think we had to be there back around 4:30 or 5. PARKING BY THE VENUE WAS A BITCH. I dropped my sister off first so she could find could find the new line but oh my God I nearly had an anxiety attack driving around so many people! The street near the merch was so packed and the lines were so long. I was completely devastated I couldn’t get anything. Honestly, if you have someone with you while waiting in line go send them because it was the hunger games trying to get merch. Anyways, I was able to find a small parking lot by the venue a couple of blocks down where I think I paid like 10 bucks to park? It sucked though because I had to walk all the way around the venue towards the back. We waited in line for a bit and then they let us in. There were a couple of scanners stations you could go through. From there, it was a free for all. I remember being so pissed because the scanner for our line stopped working so people were going ahead of us and I was panicking. It wasn’t the workers fault or anything they were so sweet and apologized me and sister just have bad luck lol. Luckily, when we got to the stage, the girls who camped behind us  remembered me and my sister and let us go to barricade with them ! We stood on the left side of the extended stage. 

( I’m too lazy to rewatermark so I’m just using the pics from my sisters twitter thread lmao, I’ll eventually upload the rest of mine from instagram onto here but for now this will have to do ). LET ME TELL YOU. THE PIT IS NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED. THE STAGE IS REALLY HIGH SO FOR SHORT PEOPLE LIKE ME (5′2-5′3) YOUR NECK GUNNA BE CRANKED UP. ALSO, YOU FEEL SO SMALL, LIKE REALLY REALLY SMALL. It gets kinda to be a lot once it gets closer to the concert starting cause you can see the venue all the way around you filling up and you realize how many people there are. I don’t even want to know how bts must feel seeing all of us damn, THERE’S A LOT OF US. unfortunately, there is a lot of shoving and hair pulling in the pit rip my hair and you’re pretty squished :( I’m naturally an anxious person but even my sister who isn’t admitted to feeling a little overwhelmed. But not to fear my precious anxious peeps, the feelings goes away cause once the concert starts, you don’t even THINK about the people around you nor do they really continue to fret around cause once the show starts all of yall gunna be star stuck by the sight before you.  

Deciding what part of the stage was a little tricky but it all worked out. My sister is Tae biased and I am Jimin biased and we had seen that they are more prone to be on the left side where we were at ! I feel like we got to see a lot of the members except for Jin which was SO SAD :( He was more on the right side of the stage, I think we got footage of him maybe like once or twice. Also, I’ve seen people ask if it’s worth it buying the army bomb. PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND BUY IT TRUST ME IT MAKES THE EXPERIENCE SO MUCH BETTER !! Like doesn’t matter what version yall just get one no one is paying attention to your army bomb version so if you can get your hands on one do it ! Unless you know you’re gunna record the whole entire time then yeah maybe not but I remember when I purchased I kinda regretted dropping that much money but after I was so happy I bought it. This isn’t to say you can’t have a great time without one either though ! I’m just saying, if you have the money and you’re wondering if it’s worth it then I’d say hell yeah it is. ALSO IF YOU HAVE BARRICADE HOLD ONTO THAT SUCKER WITH DEAL LIFE. 

It’s been a couple of months now and it honestly feels like this big ole fever dream that I’ve thought up. Let me tell you, the camera does NOT do them justice at all. I apologize as this next part will not be cohesive at all and I’ll probably come back to add to this later as I start to remember and find more pictures on my SD card. 

The concert

YALL. THEY’RE TINY. LIKE REALLY TINY. AND THEY DON’T LOOK REAL. They’re faces and bodies are so small and they’re all very thin. Joon to me felt like the only tall one and hot damn his proportions are to DIE FOR. ALSO YES JINS SHOULDERS ARE WIDE I CAN CONFIRM NOW. 

I’ve always though that people were exaggerating when they said Jungkook’s eyes sparkle like an anime character but holy fck THEY SPARKLE LIKE AN ANIME CHARACTER. Idk who tf my sister saved in her last life but my sister called out to Kookie and he gave her a thumbs up ajaskljlkfjelkfef (@4:52 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdY2txs8HFc) HE REALLY LOOKS LIKE A BUNNY GUYS MY HEART !!!

Me and my sister concluded that they really try their hardest to look at everyone in the audience. Taehyung especially, you could tell, was looking out into the stands almost as if he were searching for the people all the way in the back to let them know he saw them and he was thankful. I really surprised because I’ve heard Tae gives the best fan interaction especially those in GA and I don’t know if it was because it was opening day or maybe because he was overwhelmed but he seemed very focused on the people out in the seats. You could tell he was just trying to take it in it was so heartwarming !!! 

RAP LINE IS SO HYPE. We don’t have a lot of pictures for it but WE HAVE A LOT OF FANCAMS. THEY FED US SO WELL. Yoongi ohohohoho, HOBI ESP omg I fell in love so hard he kept coming over and teasing us, and Joon were very active on our side of the stage too his fcking dimples when he smiled all my uwus !! Their stage presence is really something else. It makes me so sad we didn’t go to the wings concert and see the cypher performances :(

Don’t be fooled okay. TO MY BIGGEST SURPRISE, JIMIN IS NOT AS SHORT AS THEY DRAG HIM TO BE. Like, I’m not saying he’s not short but stick with me here, they’re all very small guys in general ??? yes he is smaller but not by a lot. 

anyways yall i finally met the love of my life and I can finally die in peace now knowing he’s actually real and I think we made eye contact a couple of times and he’s actually that beautiful like GOD REALLY TOOK HIS TIME WITH PARK JIMIN. 

I never ever ever ever ever ever wanna hear someone say that bts is not attractive because all of the boys are so beautiful, handsome ! I think the weirdest part was looking at the screen cause that’s how they look like on like vlives and whatnot but to see them in person is something else like they don’t look like that ??? I kept looking back and forth because it was so overwhelming. I know how my phone works and takes pictures like how it translates and it’s weird to see them on my phone now i hope this makes sense ?? Also, it literally sounds like the boys ate their CDs because their vocals are no joke. I started tearing up around hobi’s performance and then Jungkook when he hit his note in euphoria AND JIN JESUS! ALL OF THEM CAN SING AND DANCE PHEW CHILE. 

LISTEN I GOT TO SEE JIMIN PERFORM SERENDIPITY I CANNOT COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYTHING IN LIFE ANYMORE IT WAS MY LAST DYING WISH. 

I’m upset because there’s a lot I wanted to say but I’m just blanking now so I’ll definitely come back and add more later on. But every army deserves to come and see the boys, it’s a life changing experience and it will really change you. I walked out sobbing with my sister because I was so heartbroken it was over. They make you feel so loved ! They’re so genuine you guys. It was honestly worth camping out and I would do it a thousand times over if I could. It’s a big celebration and festival being there I’ve never felt anything like this before in my life. There’s not enough words to describe how magical this night was. All I know is that from my bottom of my heart, I hope all of you get a chance to experience this. I’m so so so thankful to be alive and blessed enough to have the privilege to see them. When I die and hopefully if I meet God and he asks me what my most precious memory was I’m not gunna say my wedding, having kids, getting my degree. I’m gunna say with my whole chest the bts concert because this really was the night I met seven angels. 

anyways, here’s me & my sister’s fancams if you would like a look ! feel free to shoot me a question if you have any questions or whatnot or if you went the day we did ! these are only a few I have saved on my laptop but I’ll be adding more once I’m on break:

( I recommend watching them on the app on the phone and putting the quailty up idk why it linked the way it did but :( )

BTS - TRIVIA: JUST DANCE @STAPLES CENTER 180905:

BTS - Run @STAPLES CENTER 180905:

BTS - Trivia: Love & DNA @STAPLES 180905:

BTS - Boy In Luv & BST @STAPLES CENTER 180905

BTS - Tear @STAPLES CENTER 180905

BTS - Mic Drop Remix @STAPLES CENTER 180905

BTS - Ending Ment @STAPLES CENTER 180905

BTS - So What @STAPLES CENTER 180905

BTS - Anpanman @STAPLES CENTER 180905

BTS - Answer: Love Myself @STAPLES CENTER 180905