The Unstoppable Rise of K-Pop: A Night with One Pact in NYC

5 hours ago

3 min read

K-Pop has been on the rise in popularity as of recent years and continues to grow. It’s difficult to know why that might be, that is unless one experiences for themselves by participating in the fan culture. I, myself, have been a fan of different genres growing up but didn’t truly become a huge fan of going to concerts until starting to dive into the K-Pop world of music back in 2022. Since then, any new group, soloist, or just an underdog group artist piques my interest in seeing.

The most recent being One Pact (Jongwoo, Jay Chang, Seongmin, Tag, and Yedam), who right after performing at KCON LA this year started the U.S. leg of their tour to perform for their fans, also known as “&heart”, back-to-back in different states. Including New York City, where I and K Fuse photographer, Leo, had the opportunity of attending.

This group of performers are definitely dedicated, that’s for sure. Their flight from their last stop in Chicago kept getting delayed and then canceled, and that was the day before they were supposed to be on stage in NYC. So, they drove over 15 hours directly to the venue just to put on their show.

It was not obvious in their performances though. Every song had energy and it felt like it only went up as the night went on. The love for their fans and joy of being artists was felt by everyone in the room through their singing and dancing. There was a certain energy difficult to describe that filled the space with happiness that is not found in any other experience.

By the end, everyone seemed to be out of breath from all the dancing, jumping, and shouting during every song. However, that didn’t mean that the experience was completely over because fans had the opportunity beforehand to buy selfies and polaroids with any or all of the members one on one. Which wasn’t exclusively for VIP beneficiaries, as their benefits were getting soundcheck, early entrance access, and a group picture that was also done after the performances.

They had volunteers lining everyone up dependent first on who had the VIP group photo and then based on whose selfies people bought and then finally whose polaroid people purchased. For the individual pictures fans were able to get multiple with the same members as well as multiple with all, if able to. There were four different poses pre-chosen that fans could do with them, and it didn’t seem like a rushed or slow process at all.

Overall, it was a fun experience that showed New York more of a group that has powerful as well as emotional songs, great singers, rappers, and dancers, who can have fun and excude that to their audience, even after experiencing hardships to get there.

We even had the chance to interview some fans after the show:

I love going to One Pact’s concerts because I always dance, let loose, and meet so many amazing people. I think for OUTSHINE my favorite part was "Hot Stuff," because the feeling of just dancing with OP made everything more special. I can’t wait to see them again❤️ - dess

I personally love One Pact because you can tell how much love they have for their craft, their fans, and each other, so it feels like we’re all a big family. I think one of the highlights of the concert for me was getting to meet Yedam since he couldn’t attend the Jersey show last year. The other highlight for me was them performing a medley of all their solo songs! - Karl