Sept 2025 "Kpop Concert Customs & Community" by Anne Bautista

With the exploding popularity of the Netflix film K-pop Demon Hunters, K-pop has once again become a hot topic. The growing influence of Korean groups and artists, such as BTS, Blackpink, Twice, and others, has also led to a rise in fans engaging with K-pop fan culture and spaces. K-pop fandoms are great communities to explore; it is within these spaces that I have found some of my closest friends. I am usually a very introverted person, but when it comes to concerts, all that changes. At concerts, I am loud, bursting with energy, screaming lyrics, and dancing and laughing with people I meet that very day. I have had the most fun attending concerts and participating in all the little traditions that go into these events, so here I share with everyone a guide to what to expect when attending a K-pop concert for the first time. There is no pressure to engage in all these activities; they are just fun customs to know about and experience.

Lightsticks

Big Bang is credited for being the first K-pop group to have its own lightstick design for fans to bring to concerts. G-dragon, a member of Big Bang, came up with the group’s crown-designed lightstick back in 2006, and each K-pop group since then has followed the tradition of having its own unique lightstick that fans can bring to concerts to show their support. Lightsticks elevate the concert experience by being able to sync up with the live musical performances, displaying a spectacle of colors and designs throughout the concert venue amongst the crowd.

Customizing and decorating your lightstick has also become a common practice. Decorations usually are to match album concepts or show your support for your bias, your favorite member, from the group. From adding stickers to bedazzling them with gems, fans have come up with creative ways to add their own unique touch to lightsticks. Many fans have even made small businesses out of making vinyl stickers and lightstick decorations that they make and sell themselves. @WasteItOnPins is one I have bought from recently; I found them on Instagram and bought a bunny plush covering for my TXT lightstick.

Fan Chants

More commonly practiced in an organized fashion in Korea, fan chants are usually created for each album comeback. K-pop groups give fans prompt phrases they could shout during songs in place of just singing along to every song. Fan chants are meant to encourage crowd participation in performances and usually consist of shouting members' names or singing along to only certain parts of songs. With Korean culture being more conservative about shouting lyrics and musical live performance broadcasting being more common, these fan chants tend to be clearer in concerts in Korea than in other areas. One example that fans tend to bring up that clearly shows this contrast is the 2019 TXT "Cat & Dog" performance in New York. Before I explain this incident, you need to understand that sometimes K-pop is meant to be campy, "unserious", over-the-top, and silly and goofy.

With that being said, during their visit to KCON in New York, TXT performed for the first time the English version of their song “Cat & Dog,” and instead of hearing their designated fan chant for the song, members were shocked to hear nearly the whole crowd barking along with the adlibs. TXT reacted later to this incident, talking about how funny and caught off guard they were by the reaction, and have since encouraged the barking during this song performance. To this day, both Western and Korean fans have kept the barking a part of the performance, although it is much louder in Western concerts.

Fan Projects/Banners

Not everyone can afford to buy a lightstick for every group they decide to see in concert, so to be more accessible, K-pop group organizers and fans will come together to create banners for people to hold onto for the performance. Banners tend to be unique not only for each K-pop group, but for each individual stop they have during their tours, displaying different mottos and sayings of support. Fandom organizers will come up with creative ways to surprise performers by planning strategically which songs to display their banners together so the fan project is noticed. One unique project I remember participating in was for TXT where we were all handed green cellophane squares to cover over our flashlights during the performance of their song “Your Light”.

Freebies Another sweet way that fans try to connect with each other to make friends at concerts is by handing out gifts or freebies. These could come in the form of handmade photocards of members, bracelets, stickers, keychains, phone charms, candy, and other little nicknacks. Fans will usually attach their social handles to these gifts to stay connected with people they meet. Some fans will organize designated meeting spots at concert venues at specific times for mutuals they have online to come receive a freebie and anyone else that just wants to come by before they run out of freebies.

The K-pop fandom community is overall just such a fun and loving environment to be apart of. If you get the chance to attend a K-pop concert, I highly recommend making the most of the experience interacting with other fans and other concert festivities.