Chapter 33
The television studio of SBS is where they have to prerecord their performance and then perform live for the audience at the showtime. SBS i.e. Seoul Broadcasting service, which is specifically for Seoul and Incheon cities, where almost 23-25% of the entire South Korea population lives, which means even if 1% people in those places look at the music show, the idols would have already been seen by more than 100K population and that just enough for the idols to perform.
After parking there, they entered the Block-D of the building, where SBS MTV channel's music show recording will be taking place.
When all of them along with Hyesun, made their way, Jun met a lot of idols, or staff, who were actually unfamiliar to him. They greet each other. Everyone who saw them recognized the group, especially Jun, while a few even wondered who this beautiful noona is, ignoring Jun and his group.
For the first time, Jun felt that their Korean tradition of bowing while greeting others especially seniors is d.a.m.n h.e.l.l. As they were rookies, who only debuted five days ago, whether others is rookie or not, all five of them had to bow them to greet every idol who was pa.s.sing by or else they would be heavily looked down and criticized by others, considering them to be very rude.
The Show program is actually a one-hour-long, which will feature around 20 performances each week on Tuesday, 10 performances are female idol groups and 10 are male idol groups. It is a well known all around the country that almost all the music shows except Inkigayo that they only shoot pre-recorded performance on the day of broadcasting itself.
That explains the Block-D was filled with a huge number of idols every Tuesday. Unlike Unlimited, which only has 5 members, other Kpop groups are
As they reached the huge waiting hall, which has like 200 seats, Jun saw more than 70-80 members already arrived and waiting even though it's only 4:45 in the morning. The specialty of music shows is that each group can only perform two times every two months so that everyone gets a chance.
Even with that, only a few will choose to perform continuously in a row as just one show costs 4000 dollars for an agency to promote a song. So, unless it's a big company like Echo, who can invest 20K dollars per week if combined with five shows, no one would perform extensively two times every month. Still, no agency whether it's big or small would also lose the opportunity if they get the slot for promoting their song as hundreds of thousands of people would watch it.
While they give priority to big companies like ZC, Echo, etc... they will be completely fair with recording their performances and everyone has to wait in the waiting hall until their turn except if you are a famous group like Clover or Resonance, etc...
Looking at Hyesun and the group of Unlimited, around half of them stood up and greeted them as they were also rookie idols while a few are whispering between themselves, "they are Echo's rookies, aren't they?" "Wow, they look awesome." "That middle one is so tall and handsome, is that Sungjun?" "Hey, it's Unlimited right?" "The rookie monsters" "I wouldn't want the one in front to sit beside me. I would look d.a.m.n ugly." "Oh, it's Han Sungjun, right? He's famous all over the internet within this past week." "d.a.m.n, a big company. Why did our company didn't mention it?" "I hope my performance is before them." etc...
As they took a seat while Hyesun went somewhere to talk with the staff, Dohyun whispered with a smile while nudging Minsu and HaeSeong, "Hey, hey, they all are looking at us." Jun turned back and replied with a whisper, "Dohyun, don't get distracted by them and maintain calmness."
They stood up as new Idols coming to the waiting hall and taking their seat. Jun felt the atmosphere was a little bit tense as no one was conversing with other groups. One by one, several groups began to appear. Some contain only 4-5 and some like 15 members and there are solo singers too and there are mixed groups too, which are the envy of these young age people between 17-20 years ago, where almost every idol wishes to date someone or at the very least converse with the opposite gender.
As there were no popular groups are performing that day, members of Unlimited felt hoped that they would at least get more points in the voting period, as in the past two weeks, their songs were causing waves upon waves all over Korea.
Their "Energetic" song has already crossed 30 million views but to Jun's surprise, the one, which caused a huge wave is Boomerang, which already surpa.s.sed 50 million views in just 10 days and was still climbing up, although, regarding audio, the most listened is still Energetic, followed by Always, then Burn it up and lastly Boomerang.
By 6 o'clock, everyone arrived and the waiting hall was filled with the 172 idols. The seating arrangement was divided into two sections, males and females. So, the opposite genders are separated, although Jun can hear comments about them from his nearby idols like, "she's so pretty" "Is she j.a.panese?" "she's so cute" "that girl in the blue jacket is so s.e.xy," "I like that girl. She looks so pure and innocent," etc... Things like that are normal among Idols as they are also normal males, who were even compressed by the companies.
While it's pretty normal that girls also have such thoughts about boys, they weren't open like boys to express it and of course, unlike boys, they won't share the thoughts for an obvious reason. Meanwhile, Jun continuously felt several stares on him from all sides and it started disturbing him somehow, so, he just closed his eyes and put on earphones to listen to songs silently.
At 6:30 A.M. The shooting started and like everyone else, Unlimted waited for their turn. After waiting for 5 hours, they got their turn and they went to the dressing room to change into outfits, which were already prepared before by Hyesun and after their makeup was done, the five of them exited the dressing room and waited at the backstage while a group was pre-recording their shoot.