Although Wanna One’s U.S. affiliate said they changed the venues for production purposes, some believe there is another reason for the switch.

Wanna One
Image source -OSEN News

On June 6, Powerhouse Live, the contractor handling the U.S. portion of Wanna One’s world tour, announced venue changes for three out of the four U.S. stops.

As a result, the company transferred the group’s shows in Dalla’s Ft. Worth CC Area, Allstate Arena in Chicago, and Atlanta’s Infinite Energy Arena to the Verizon Theater, Rosemont Theater and Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, respectively.

However, while Powerhouse explained that these changes were due to the stage production, the drastic differences in the venues’ capacities have made many suspect that poor ticket sales are the real reason.

A Twitter user responds to Powerhouse Live’s announcement – Twitter

Notably, all three of the previous locations in Atlanta (cap. 10,000), Dallas (cap.13,500), and Chicago (cap. 18,500) can accommodate ten-thousand or more people. On the other hand, all the new venues fit around five-thousand people with the Georgia and Chicago venues with the most drastic changes with 2,750 and 4,400 seats respectively.

Comments related to various new articles all hinted that the demand for the group in the U.S. is lower than expected. One commenter wrote, “yeah, if the audience (seats) are empty, it doesn’t look good.” Additionally, another said that the group’s company should have done a “market survey” before booking the venues while others mentioned that the Wanna One, who has been a group for less than a year, still has many fans in Korea that have yet to see them in concert.

In addition to suspected poor concert sales, Wanna One’s headlining appearance at KCON New York’s June 24 concert is going in the same direction. The day’s concert still has dozens of tickets left for sale. Meanwhile, the June 23 show is already sold out.

According to Ticketmaster.com, the official ticket vendor for KCON NY, there are many tickets left for the June 24 concert, while the June 23 show is sold out (screen capture 6/8/2018) – Ticketmaster

Leaving the West Out

One commenter on an online community reason that a group created “for Korea and chosen by Korean” cannot expect the “same sort of [popularity] in America” given that the K-pop community there had no say in the group’s formation, referencing the Mnet’s survival audition program “Produce 101.”

Furthermore, another person explained that the group’s popularity does not automatically “transfer to the western audience” and that “they have not really done anything to attract” or include western audiences, unlike other K-pop groups who have held successful concerts and fan meets in America.

 

 

 

Sources (1)(2)(3)

Translated by O.C

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