When the line-up for the Grand Wave K-Pop Music Festival 2023 was first announced in 2022, K-pop fans were ecstatic. The line-up was stellar with some big names like Girls’ Generation’s Hyo, EXO’s Chen, GOT7’s Youngjae, B.I, Park Bom, Soda, and Shaun. However, there were many issues from the get-go.

Although it clashed with the date for GE15, the organisers initially said they would not postpone the concert before finally announcing that it would be delayed to a later date:


When 14 January rolled around, ardent K-pop fans were excited to finally have a memorable night and see their idols up close –– but unfortunately due to what seemed to be bad planning on the organiser’s part, the night quickly turned sour for many attendees. One fan summed up the whole experience by saying, “Grandwave is a mess.”

Many others shared their less-than-satisfactory experiences on Twitter, with one post, in particular, asking others to comment receiving a string of complaints in the replies about everything from the audio system to the unequal distribution of performing time for the respective artists:


Despite the fact that Park Bom had already opened the show and started performing, some people were still stuck in the queue:



Another said that it was the “WORST queue management I've ever experienced in my entire life” and a “whole line of people trying to cut our queue but thanks to the fierce fans, they were put back in their place.”


The same fan shared that Kim Han Bin, or B.I’s microphone was malfunctioning even after it was changed:


Another shared images of a lot of power banks being confiscated by the despite it not being listed as a prohibited item by the organisers and some reported that their items were stolen at the end of the night:


A serious complaint that one attendee had was that they were subjected to body checks, and they felt that they were being sexually harassed as apparently even their private parts were being checked:


A diabetic fan shared that the staff even tried to stop her from bringing her insulin injection in:


After going through all the tweets, it seemed like the artists gave their all, but the fans weren’t able to enjoy their night due to mismanagement by the organisers. This also reminds us of how disappointed fans were by Billie Eilish’s concert last year. Let’s hope that the Malaysian concert organisers will work on improving the experience for fans next time!

Image credit: @_bbhcotton, @haeyeogihere