Chapter 154. Doesn't This Somehow Make Your Heart Race?
The Super Bowl Halftime Show.
The very same Super Bowl Halftime Show held right in the middle of the Super Bowl, the championship game of the NFL, the most popular sports league in America.
They stop the game midway, announce halftime...
And suddenly put on a massive concert.
And now that very Super Bowl Halftime Show wanted Blue Moon.
"Is that even possible, Dae-hun? It's not some fake email, is it?"
"I don't think it's fake. I checked."
"Then I guess this is a dream. Hurry up and wake up. Pinch your cheek or something."
Dae-hun pinched his cheek, then even slapped himself lightly.
But nothing appeared in midair saying,
[As Kwon Dae-hun's dream has ended, the world will now be reset.]
If this wasn't some ridiculously elaborate springtime dream, then what was it?
"I think our Blue Moon has grown about as big as they can get. I mean, if we're getting an in-in-in-invitation like this..."
Let's think about this calmly.
Even Billy Aaron, who had supported Blue Moon in Korea, was famous enough that you could practically say he had spent his career aiming for the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
That was the level of recognition this event required.
I called the contact listed in the email.
"Yes, this is the National Football League 2024 Super Bowl task force."
The event planner answered.
I steadied my breathing and spoke calmly.
"This is Do Jun-hyeok, CEO of Universe Entertainment. I'm calling because we received your invitation email."
"Ah, CEO Do Jun-hyeok. We've been waiting for your call."
"I saw in the proposal that Blue Moon would be performing alongside other artists. I wanted to ask who else is participating."
Austin River.
British Spearman.
Doctor Andre.
Mary Wild.
And Lady Gagarin.
They were planning a stage featuring those four artists plus Blue Moon, making five acts in total.
And the first four had already confirmed their appearances.
My goal was to make Blue Moon a group that would never look out of place even among a lineup like that.
But objectively speaking, I couldn't say they were already on that level.
That meant there had to be another reason Blue Moon had been invited.
Think from the planner's perspective.
If I were organizing the Super Bowl Halftime Show and I included Blue Moon...
Why would I do it?
There was only one answer.
Right now, with Serin and Anna leading the way and even Aran and Youngchae becoming hot topics, Blue Moon was perfect as a fresh, buzzworthy guest act.
Normally, the Super Bowl Halftime Show featured only one artist.
If several already-established global stars had been booked, then it made sense to include at least one act with timely momentum and novelty.
"Then have you made a decision yet?"
I'd only called to verify the invitation.
What should I do?
If I thought of performing at the Super Bowl as some kind of medal to hang on the wall, then we shouldn't do it.
No matter how big the stage was, if it didn't create meaningful momentum for future activities, there was no reason to participate.
But one major advantage couldn't be ignored.
It took place in the middle of the championship game.
An enormous number of people who had never even imagined watching Blue Moon would see them perform.
And most of those viewers would be ordinary Americans who were still relatively unfamiliar with Blue Moon.
That made the promotional effect even stronger.
But that exact point also revealed the downside.
Since most of the audience would be American, the direct impact in Korea wouldn't be as huge as people might imagine.
If all I wanted was for more Koreans to watch Blue Moon perform live, appearing on 〈Music Bang Bang〉 might actually be more attractive.
Sure, the news that Blue Moon had performed at the Super Bowl would draw enormous attention in Korea...
But were there even Korean fans left who didn't already know how impressive Blue Moon was?
At this point, Blue Moon didn't need to prove how great they were in Korea.
They needed to show what other kinds of charm they possessed.
But what if we held one massive event in Korea before performing at the Super Bowl?
Wouldn't that eliminate the biggest reason I'd been reluctant about overseas activities?
Whenever Blue Moon left Korea for a major overseas schedule, domestic fans felt left behind.
They started assuming that after tasting foreign money, the group would take forever to return home.
And lately, Serin had spent a lot of time overseas promoting 〈The Stranger〉, while Anna had also been abroad dealing with matters involving her parents.
That probably made the fans even more anxious.
Fine.
Let's go all the way.
We'll do something huge in Korea first.
Then we'll do the Super Bowl.
If it's the Super Bowl, haven't we basically seen everything the American entertainment industry has to offer?
We can graduate early from the American market with the Super Bowl.
Anyone who wants more Blue Moon can subscribe to our channel.
After that, we can occasionally appear on American shows and hold one or two local performances.
That should fulfill our obligations to American fans.
"There will be solo stages and collaborative stages, right?"
"Yes, that's correct. If you accept, we were going to discuss the schedule and stage concepts as well."
"We'll do it."
Once the schedule was confirmed, I'd figure out a strategy to reassure Korean fans before going back to America.
"But I do have one condition."
"What is it?"
"If there's a collaborative stage, we'll need to rehearse together at least once. I don't know whether Blue Moon will be in America or Korea at that time. Other artists may not value every single schedule the way we do, but we do."
If a rehearsal date was set, bring the other artists to wherever Blue Moon happened to be.
That was my only condition.
If they didn't like it, then we simply wouldn't do the Super Bowl.
The planner replied,
"We'll try to coordinate schedules where possible. If that doesn't work, we'll adjust the other artists' schedules."
Good.
No matter how famous you people are, even you can't casually give up a Super Bowl stage.
A subordinate can't throw his weight around against the boss.
But someone below the subordinate can throw his weight around by borrowing the boss's authority.
It had worked in Jeju.
And it would work here too.
You come to us.
I'd talked big to them, but I couldn't stop my heart from pounding.
To discuss the situation, four of us gathered in the company conference room.
Me.
Dae-hun.
Jin-hee.
And Youngchae, who happened to be practicing vocals alone in the rehearsal room.
Youngchae watched footage of muscular Americans running around with a ball and clicked her tongue.
"We got invited to perform during the break in the championship game? Then that's an insanely good stage. Americans love rugby."
"Right. It's an incredible opportunity."
Technically, it was more like a performance during halftime while waiting for the second half of a soccer match.
And American football and rugby were definitely not the same sport.
"But I think we should do one big event in Korea before we go."
What the hell?
Youngchae said it.
I had been about to lead everyone toward exactly that conclusion.
"Why do you think so?"
When I asked, Youngchae answered like it was obvious.
"We've been overseas a lot lately. Even I only recently got back from America because of United Talenet Live. Serin unni is still traveling around America too. If I were a fan, I'd probably feel anxious."
Exactly right.
Youngchae could probably work as a manager now.
Of course, that was absolutely not allowed.
"Youngchae's right. Let's do something big. Even if we say we're coming straight back to Korea after the Super Bowl, people will still worry. How much money have Apollo members spent on us by now?"
"You're seriously deciding this that suddenly?"
Dae-hun asked suspiciously.
Apparently, it was obvious I'd already been thinking about it.
Still, couldn't he just let it slide?
Youngchae had come up with the same idea, so couldn't I at least pretend we were doing it because of her?
Besides, when had I ever needed much time to make decisions?
World K-Pop in Jinju had been decided almost on impulse.
And there were plenty of other examples...
"I agree too. There are plenty of mid-level artists who go to America and completely flop. We need to plant a proper stake in Korea first. Only then can we move around America freely."
Jin-hee agreed.
"Then what kind of event should we do?"
Dae-hun raised the question, and everyone fell into serious thought.
Youngchae spoke again.
"How about a solo concert?"
"A solo concert?"
"Yes. We've held a bunch of fan meetings since our unknown days, but we've never done a real solo concert even once. If we want to give the fans immediate satisfaction, I don't think there's anything better than that."
It was a good idea.
I'd been wondering whether we should do another fan meeting because it would let us interact more closely with the fans.
But now that I thought about it...
I wanted to see Blue Moon standing on a massive stage made only for them, performing Blue Moon songs from beginning to end.
Blue Moon's first solo concert.
Just thinking about it somehow made my heart race.
From there, the meeting progressed quickly.
The first and second albums had enough B-sides that filling out the setlist wouldn't be too difficult.
Of course, we couldn't just stuff the entire concert with album tracks to kill time.
But Blue Moon had another advantage.
Blue Moon, the masters of covers.
And since every member had strong vocals, building a varied set wouldn't be difficult.
We weren't planning to invite special guest singers either.
"Ah... Somehow, this feels like we're renewing our contracts again."
"Renewing contracts? What do you mean?"
Youngchae answered.
"Our Blue Moon contract renewal. I was really happy back then. Thinking that we're finally doing the solo concert we've wanted for so long reminds me of that."
So she was extremely happy right now.
And yet she said it in the same calm tone she'd use to describe some old memory.
In America, Serin was famous for her cynical character in 〈The Stranger〉.
But the real cynical character was obviously Youngchae.
Of course, Youngchae wasn't actually cynical by nature.
If someone teased her, she was the kind of person who rewarded them with the strongest possible reaction.
Which made teasing her incredibly satisfying.
Sure, sometimes it failed.
But wasn't that what made it even better?
"Seeing you this happy makes me happy too. So how about we tear the fans apart? You're good at tearing people apart, Youngchae."
"Ack! Stop saying that. It's seriously embarrassing!"
I teased her once with the line she'd recorded for 〈Call of Ground〉, then we moved on to the real concert planning.
Blue Moon's first solo concert would be designed as a reverse gift to the fans.
And for it to count as a proper reverse gift, we needed to make as little money as possible.
There was no more perfect definition than that.
Ticket prices would be set at the lowest end of the average concert range.
And the VIP rows closest to the stage would be distributed to long-time fandom members.
"What if we give ticketing priority to fans who own both the first and second albums? If the ticket prices are the same, they'll all choose the closest seats anyway."
"That's a good idea. But wouldn't that be too many people?"
When I asked for an additional opinion on Youngchae's suggestion, Dae-hun answered.
"Even if you combine the first and second albums, did we even print five thousand copies? And not all of them sold. I'm pretty sure some were cleared out as leftover stock."
"Ah... Such a tragic history. I had no idea."
I'd bought mine on the way to work the moment it was released.
I had one anyway.
Heh.
"...Yeah, five thousand is right. We printed four thousand of the first album, but it flopped so badly that we only printed one thousand of the second."
Dae-hun spoke after thinking it over.
So that was why the second album's quality had been so poor.
There were one or two good B-sides, but from the title track onward, most of it had been pretty bad.
Anyway, even if every single album had sold, only five thousand fans could possibly qualify for ticketing priority.
The venue currently available to us was the Olympic Stadium, where we could install up to five thousand seats.
And since the concert would run for three days, we could still allocate a fair number of tickets to ordinary fans.
"This really does sound good. Then promotion will be important. I'm telling Apollo right now."
"Okay."
I picked up my phone and posted the news in the fandom messenger room.
[This is Do Jun-hyeok, everyone.]
[We're holding our first solo concert.]
[If you own both the first and second albums, you'll get ticketing priority, so I recommend digging them out of storage now.]
[And don't worry, we're not taking the albums away from you. We'll just verify them and give them back.]
The response was basically a firestorm.
[So-solo concert! Hwaaa...]
[I thought you'd forgotten about us, Do hyung ㅜㅜ]
[Hmm. Blue Moon's first solo concert... Interesting.]
[WHENN IS ITTTT!!]
[To me, a Blue Moon solo concert is murder...]
And just like that, the fandom learned about the solo concert while we were still in the middle of the meeting.
It had only been a few minutes.
But just as we were about to resume the detailed discussion, Seo Hoe-dong called me.
"Yes, PD-nim. I've answered the phone."
"You're doing a Blue Moon solo concert? When did you decide that?"
Word traveled insanely fast.
"We literally just decided. How do you already know? Are you in the messenger room?"
"Ah, yes. Hahaha. I have to monitor the fandom for the documentary. I've been in there for quite a while."
Seo Hoe-dong was still producing Blue Moon's documentary.
It had originally started as something tied to the MVN programming channel.
But lately, he'd also been producing quite a lot of material for our Nutube channel.
If we were going to hold a solo concert, he wanted to build some narrative around the members preparing for it.
A major event like that was too important to ignore.
"No, PD-nim. Don't promote the solo concert through the documentary. Let's use a different format."
"Change it? You mean create an entirely new program?"
If we kept doing documentaries forever, even the fans would get tired of them.
If we were going to give back to the fans, we might as well do it properly.
I told Seo Hoe-dong my idea.
