Hallyu North was enough of a mess that it made mainstream news in Canada

K-pop concerts put on outside of Asia are routinely an absolute mess because they involves overseas promoters and companies that are more fans than actual professionals. Generally though, the complaints are kept to Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook and sites like this. Not so for the much-hyped, much-anticipated Hallyu North event, which was enough of a mess that it drew the attention of CBC News.

“Everything was late, everything was terrible,” said 16-year-old Vesta Choi, who claims to have spent $320 to attend the festival. “[Organizers] were saying that they would have these food fests, they were saying that they would have these events, showcases and all of that — none of that happened.” Sylvia Meadows told CBC News via email that people had to stand outside for several hours just to enter the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Place. She called her experience “a chaotic mess.”

Some fans were frustrated that Shinee only performed four songs for roughly 30 minutes before leaving. Multiple attendees said this was well short of what was expected. “Organizers promised it would not be a short concert but they didn’t deliver,” Choi said.

“They could not organize themselves and delayed everything,” she said. “There [is] a mass of angry customers.”

One reviewer of the concert characterized it as a “complete failure”.

Hundreds of fans filled the Enercare centre on Friday May 6th for the inaugural Hallyu North k-pop convention. With popular k-pop group SHINee headlining the show, it was difficult to see where the show could go wrong. Fans were in for a shocking surprise as the evening went on, as they saw how bad things would become.

It really wasn’t until after the Chicago showcase, which was over 2 hours and involved six songs plus games and questions, that the salt was really rubbed into the wound that the concert was a complete failure.

Most prominently, professional SHINee/BABYMETAL stan Xavier Woods (who moonlights as a professional wrestler) tweeted out that SHINee was awesome, but the event itself? Not so much.

Getting to see #SHINEEinTORONTO live was 🔥, so freaking good! – the unorganized situation @HallyuNorth was not… pic.twitter.com/vixrOFjfKf

— Austin Creed (@AustinCreedWins) May 7, 2016

For their part, Hallyu North Entertainment didn’t exactly deny that it was a mess, but basically hand-waved away responsibility for it on growing pains.

“We are aware of a small number of complaints from fans and we want to thank these fans for their feedback,” the statement says. “We acknowledge that first year expositions are not without their difficulties and we are certainly no exception. … We’re currently working on a variety of solutions for fans that were not satisfied and we intend to handle these fans’ concerns both fairly and promptly.”

Not exactly reports of fans maybe being close to death like at EXO‘s recent concerts in North America, but it also didn’t exactly seem like a swell time.

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CAN’T WAIT FOR 2017!