Super Junior has once more impressed people internationally with their latest achievements.
The popular SMTOWN group will soon become the first Asian artist to hold a solo concert in Saudi Arabia. The group is already known to have a very large following in Saudi Arabia, making it no surprise that they would be the first Korean and overall Asian artist to tour there. However, what has come as a surprise to some is the outpouring of support and excitement concerning the event.
Not only will the group be holding their SUPER JUNIOR WORLD TOUR SUPER SHOW 7S in Jeddah, the second largest city in Saudi Arabia, they will be the first K-pop artists to perform at the K-pop Arena— a new arena built specifically for the concert as part of the King Abdullah Sports City. This marks the first time in Saudi Arabia that a new venue has been built in anticipation of a specific event.
The day after their solo concert, the group’s sub-units Super Junior D&E and Super Junior K.R.Y will be performing at the Jeddah Season Festival, along with JYP Entertainment rookie group Stray Kids.
When the tickets for the SUPER SHOW 7S went on sale on July 3rd AST, over 20,000 fans were waiting to snag tickets both in person and online according to Arab ELF Radio. What happened as a result was that the website almost immediately crashed. At one point, the site was down for over an hour while fans continued to line up in person in an attempt to get the coveted tickets at official selling points as well. With the site still crashing on and off and showing error messages for fans, the concert was officially marked as sold-out approximately three hours after the beginning of the sale, causing thousands of fans to still be left with no tickets. As such, they immediately took to social media to contact the venue and ask for more concert tickets to be made available.
The incident made national news— with many newspapers, television shows, and online media outlets talking about the huge demand for tickets to the show and thus speaking of the international popularity of Super Junior. In addition, many international outlets also picked up the news as well.
News : The website “Sharik” got totally broken down after opening up the tickets for Super Junior concert at Jeddah .
? Tickets SOLD OUT in 3 hours due the website broken .#SS7SinJEDDAH @SJofficial
pic.twitter.com/gCtKwsO9Eu— Arab ELF Radio (@ArabELFRADIO) July 4, 2019
In addition to being covered on the news, the event organizers also took to Twitter to share the following message that humorously asked fans, “What did you do to the website?”
Super Junior’s SUPER SHOW 7S in Jeddah will be held next week on July 12th, with the sub-units performing the following day on July 13th. The move is just the latest to celebrate current efforts of modernization in the conservative society that has now removed many restrictions on entertainment and more.
Congratulations to Super Junior, as well as to ELF who have been waiting for this opportunity for such a long time.
Will you be attending the event? Let us know by tweeting to us @whatthekpop1!
Media: SMTOWN
Thanks to Arab ELF Radio for the assistance in this article!