IU’s Concert Crew Members Criticized For Re-selling Staff T-Shirts At High Prices

IU recently became the first-ever female artist to hold a solo concert at the Jamsil Olympic Stadium. Her show,  “The Golden Hour – Under the Orange Sun,” went on for two consecutive days, September 17 and 18, with a recorded total footfall of 80,000. An event of such scale inevitably required a lot of manpower to be successful.

According to reports, 90 performers appeared on stage with IU during the concert, while a total of 1400 staff members were working behind the scenes to put the event together. So, to distinguish them easily from the attendees, every crew member was given a custom-made t-shirt. The shirt was created by New Balance, a brand that IU represents as a brand ambassador.

But after the concert, these exclusive t-shirts were seen being sold on resale websites. Fans noted that the price was ridiculously marked up, around ₩15,000 KRW (about $10.70 USD) to ₩20,000 KRW (about $14.20 USD).

IU’s agency, Edam Entertainment, stated that they had tried to recover all these limited edition t-shirts after the concert to prevent reselling but locating every last one of the 1,400 of them was an impossible task. Fans urged the company to launch these t-shirts as official merchandise so they could buy them at a fair price. But the agency replied saying producing merchandise for this concert would be impossible due to their given schedule.

“It is impossible to proceed with the production of a new concert MD due to the schedule of the MD reservation. However, we will deliver the T-shirt production to relevant departments.”

— EDAM Enterainment