With the world championships football/soccer starting again recently and the South Korean car builder Hyundai releasing their new car, Hyundai decided to host a free viewing of the Senegal vs The Netherlands in Ahoy Rotterdam.. You might be confused now because what does that have to do with anything South Korea right? Hyundai pulled out the stops for this and invited the South Korean idol group EVERGLOW and the South Korean Taekwondo unit K-Tigers. They announced this everywhere so of course we made sure we were there.
Meet & Greet
To my surprise Hyundai had announced a M&G with Everglow and asked the fans who wanted to win to write them an email about why they deserved to win. I heard some pretty good stories from the fans that had indeed won. However everyone for the M&G were told to be there before 14:00 pm and there was already quite a group waiting outside for the actual show, I was surprised with how many Everglow fans were there and it was great watching everyone connect and they even started to do random play dance.
Random play dance is a game where at random songs are played (KPOP songs in this case) and the fans that know the choreography can run to the center and perform the dance along with other fans. It was great to see and hear how everyone cheered whenever someone danced.
When everyone’s names were checked they were lead inside of the venue and to a table where the group sat waiting and everyone got their items signed and they all took a picture together with Everglow. It was really nice to have a small chat and watch everyone take selfies with the girls. After this we were lead back outside to wait to be let into the venue for the actual show.
The show
Once we were inside and seated, most of the fans had standing places, I was on the first ring. It took a little bit before half the venue was filled, most of the people coming for football/soccer were not there yet. Firstly the ambassador of Hyundai put in a few good words, thanking everyone for coming to the event. Everyone cheered loudly for him and I think was a bit flustered by them. The K-Tigers were announced first and boy was that good and fun to watch.
About K-Tigers- from their website:
KTigers was founded in 1990 as a Taekwondo performance team that performs versions of Taekwondo that are combined with diverse cultural media (K-Pop, acrobatics, etc.). KTigers is a proponent of “fusion Taekwondo,” or a modernized version of Taekwondo that is combined with martial arts and K-Pop dance. KTigers has an especially powerful presence on social media such as YouTube, through which it has become one of the world’s most popular Taekwondo performance groups. The KTigers program is comprised of five curricula: Taekwondo Poomsae, K-Pop Taekwondo, Demonstration Taekwondo, Extreme Taekwondo, and the KTigers Performance team. Those who complete the course of KTigers Performance team, which is also the most difficult, become eligible to participate in trial performances as a member of the KTigers team. It is the only program in the world that blends taekwondo movements with K-Pop music.
They did all kinds of flips and breaking boards at different heights, they of course received so many cheers and applause from everyone in the venue. they also performed and mixed martial arts with doing dances from KPOP songs. They did BTS and Twice, everyone was screaming for them by then.
Next up was Everglow, their set was broken up in two times 15 minutes and the first round they only got to play two songs, Ladida and Adios. But of course, they absolutely slayed them with the fans singing along and doing all the fan chants, though as fast as it started it ended aswell. Being followed by a dutch dj trio called Kriss Kross Amsterdam, these guys didn’t receive the same amount of energy as the K-Tigers and Everglow but the energy was still going. Some singing along to typical dutch songs here and there before the football/soccer started.
We watched 98 and a bit minutes of the soccer, in which The Netherlands team won with lots of cheers from the fans that came just for that. Once the girls took the stage again they all up and left the venue unfortunately. However it didn’t stop the fans from screaming along to the fan chants as loud as they could and giving the most amount of energy they had left.
They got to sing three more songs, Dun Dun, Pirate and Bon Bon Chocolate. it was extremely good and we danced in our seats and waved out phone lights at them. Everglow is now on my wishlist to see in the future. Hopefully they come again soon for their own tour. I’m sure many fans will be eager to join them.
I would like to give a huge thank you to Hyundai for having us, for inviting Everglow and K-Tigers. It was amazing to watch and cheer them on in person.
