Korea hosts an annual televised song festival where top name singers from around asia perform. This is the 8th year since 2004 and the venue changes each year to a different Korean city. As part of the 'Visit Daegu 2011' promotion, and follow up to the sucessful Daegu IAAF Games in August, the city of Daegu will also host this years song festival in the World Cup Stadium.

I dont really follow K-Pop so cant comment on how good the performers are, but participants will be from Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand . The line up keeps changing but here is the list on their webpage : http://www.asf.or.kr/html_en/sub02_01.htm. Previous years have included other asian nations such as Indonesia and Vietnam and the event will be broadcast in many countries in and outside of asia.

Ticket ordering was a bit confusing. For the longest time nobody knew how to get tickets. The website was still showing the 2010 event and up till two months ago Daegu Tourism had no idea how to order either. They told me tickets would be free which I thought would be a greater problem as all the screaming teenagers will snap them up right away.

Fortunately, there was to be a coupon download on their website where you would be given one ticket after registering with your passport number. I heard last year tickets were all gone within two hours. On the assigned day the download was luckily during lunchtime so I kept refreshing and was able to get tickets within twenty minutes .

Again this caused problems as you couldnt reserve a block of tickets with your friends so we were all assigned different areas of the stadium. There ended up being four rounds of coupon downloads on different days so the plan was we were all going to meet up at the stadium and try to get seats together.

People could pickup tickets from 3pm until 5.30 after which time the show would start at 6.30. Seating in your block would be on a first come basis so it would be a long wait from 3pm to get a good block of seats together, until the show started. Also the stadium is 2 hours from my house so I would have to leave from about noon.

I got to the stadium at 2.30 and the outside was already jam packed with massive crowds lining up to redeem their coupons for tickets. The Daegu Board of Education had offered two VIP tickets to each teacher that asked for one, so I actually already had two VIP tickets where there was no line up in addition to my downloaded coupon . Unfortunately I wouldnt have been able to sit with my friends so stood in line with them.

The line was massive and snaked up and down several times from the ticket booth, down to the street and back up again. In the line I noticed a group of four of my first grade students waiting further back. Later on there were two more of my girls and two of my boys that were further up and already got their tickets so were waiting for their four friends in line.

The VIP seats would be in the stadium grass area so flat ground. My experience from past events was people standing up or on their chairs so I actually preferred the stadium seating further back with my friends. So I gave my two VIP tickets to the two girls as they would appreciate it more being close up to their idols. I couldnt give it to the boys as there were six of them so they wouldnt be together and some of the boys are bad in my class.

We still couldnt go in the stadium and had to line up again by seating block . They were taking people in by seating block to ensure crowd control and people sit in the correct areas. There were many school age students, many straight from school and still in their uniforms, so it could have been pandimonium.

Finally we got to our seats by about 5.20 so had some time before the show started at 6pm. It actually started at 5.45. The first set of acts were the top new korean artists. They would each do a set of two songs and move on to the next act. As the stadium grew darker many people were waving glowing sticks in beat to the music.

Video : Waving Glow Sticks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQbakvlcYmI

After the first hour the main acts began to perform. The first one I recognized was Miss A. They are a large girl group. They have a song 'Bad Girls' where the lyrics are 'you dont know me, you dont know me, shut up boy, shut up boy'. I know this as there is a K-Pop game I have been using with my students and they keep doing the dance moves so I know them now to this song .

Video : Miss A - Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUKUF9AAHVY

Video : Miss A - Part II (Bad Girls, Shut Up Boy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z000pjZ2Rc

The group that everyone kept going most hysterical for was B2ST (pronounced Beast). Everytime their group pic was displayed or name mentioned the entire stadium erupted into hysterical screams. When they did perform all you practically hear is the hysterical screaming so its worth listening on the video below.

Video : B2ST
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDZLZYXRkl8

Then an unexpected rain storm hit. We thought we were ok in the covered seating but we were still getting a bit sprayed. Fortunately we were given free blankets as we came in as a complimentary gift so people used that for cover. The stadium seats ahead of us were soaked and people left for cover indoors . The people in the VIP section in the field were soaked and many ran inside for cover.

After a twenty minute interval the rain died down and they dried the stage off. There had already been some foreign acts from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China but I didnt know them. The first Japanese act to perform was a group "AAA". The two girls had cute outfits, one was like a waitress and a mini hat pinned on, the second had princess leia curls.

The second Japanese act was "Perfume" which my friends had been waiting for. At first they sounded like the chipmunks, but I liked the style of music. I found the Japanese acts to be more 'ethno-pop' and Japanese sounding, whereas K-Pop is generic pop so not culturally identifiable to Korea. So I actually liked the J-Pop better than the K-Pop for this reason.

Video : Perfurme (Japan) taken by a friend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ8ZuM3aVVw&feature=player_embedded

Video : Perfume (Japan)
http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=kGbOMr-0Zd0

Another foreign singer was Tata Young from Thailand, again somebody I had no idea who she was. Her opening started with an arabic/indian sounding song and she was using lyrics from a bollywood hindi song. Her other songs which were more pop sounding I also enjoyed.

Video : Tata Young (Thailand) - Bollywood Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5pTNen2X6I

The final two big acts for the night were Girls Generation and Super Junior, a large female and male group respectively. They were very popular and also got wild hysterical cheers.

Video : Girls Generation - Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O87H4iAwznM

Video : Girls Generation - Part II (Trouble, Trouble)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-WVfNbv73Y

Video : Super Junior
http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=9dIiTeIBHrA

A friend posted this news clip where Chinese TV covered the Song Festival

Video : Chinese News Coverage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rciptO3eO_U&feature=player_embedded

Having had no knowledge going into the concert I came out a fan of some new acts. Both J-Pop acts from Japan I quite liked, AAA and Perfume. I also quite liked Tata Young from Thailand and the big name korean acts, which I filmed so I can play them to my students.

Since posting my videos on youtube they went viral within an hour. Tata Young got more than 250 hits in the first hour and my inbox was bombarded with comments asking for more videos and thanking me for posting this one. Perfume was also going wild in hits and soon overtook Tata Young with over 300 hits and both still climbing.

Since uploading last nite I awoke this morning to over 7000 hits for Tata Young and 1000+ for Perfume!!!! My inbox is flooded with comments and new subscribers . By noon it was 10,000+ hits in only 19 hours since upload! .... second day its now at 26,750+ when I checked in the morning!
http://www.youtube.com/user/londone73#g/u