SM Entertainment Under Fire For Booking Too Small A Venue For Legendary 2nd Generation Group’s Fan Meeting

SM Entertainment recently came under fire after announcing the venue for Super Junior‘s upcoming fan meeting. This would be the first Korean offline fan meeting for the group with all members present. It was set to be held on November 4, 2023, at the Kyunghee University Grand Peace Palace.

What caused fans to be riled up was the choice of venue. The venue only seats 4,500 fans, as it is a university auditorium hall. Although such halls often host fan meetings and concerts for celebrities, at Super Junior’s level, the hall would not be able to hold all their fans. The stage was also called out for being small.

As it is the group’s first offline fan meeting in South Korea in 8 years, fans expect that international fans would want to fly over as well. Coupled with local fans, there would be way more demand than tickets. Fans feel that the company has been undermining Super Junior for a long time. They sent protest trucks to the company on October 4, 2023, to voice their grievances.

Here’s the messages carried by the trucks.

• Booking the venue late, negligent work. Blocking their ears and eyes for 18 years now. SM, who does shoddy work but gets paid, should wake up now. Change the venue for Super Junior’s 18th anniversary fan meeting.
• First Korean fan meeting in 8 years. Was the Grand Peace Palace the best you could do? Own up to booking the venue late, and change the venue. Change the venue for Super Junior’s 18th anniversary fan meeting.
• There’s no end to SM’s negligence. They’ve been repeating the same mistake with renting venues. Change the venue for Super Junior’s 18th anniversary fan meeting.
• For their group concert, solo concert, and even fan meeting, they’ve been bad at booking venues. There’s a limit to how much we can bear. Change the venue. Change the venue for Super Junior’s 18th anniversary fan meeting.

Fans are accusing the company of making a last-minute booking, resulting in all the bigger venues being booked out. Netizens whole-heartedly agree with the fans.

• No, but can’t SM book venues in advance? Seems like we keep hearing about their venues. If they do it in a rush, of course there won’t be available spaces. Do they lose something by booking in advance?
• Huh?? Booking a group fan meeting at the Grand Peace Palace? And Super Junior at that? What’s more is that this is the first one in 8 years? How are they doing their work like that?
• Huh? Super Junior at the Grand Peace Palace? Are they joking?
• Feels like Super Junior is constantly being gaslit by their company. When the vocal unit released their album, SM said they wouldn’t be able to sell 100,000 albums. They sold 180,000 albums then or something, and said the company was surprised. When the maknae went to the army, they said 2/3 of the fans would leave, didn’t they? This time too, holding a fan meeting at the Grand Peace Palace. But they’re including a Global Package tour too. Just what do they think of Super Junior?
• Huh??? Super Junior at the Grand Peace Palace?
• Grand…Peace…Palace…LOL
• I was like, huh, just where is the venue? But when I saw the Grand Peace Palace, I was like, they crazy.
• They’re insane.
• But the Grand Peace Palace is not super small, and their IRL fandom is also at the bottom ranks. Last year, they weren’t able to fill all 3 days for an IRL concert, so how can they fill up a sports stadium now?

Fans are ardently calling for a change in venue. This is not the first time that fans took issue with a venue by SM Entertainment. Read more about how SHINee’s fans successfully protested their way to a venue change below.

SM Entertainment Apologizes And Changes Location Of SHINee’s 15th Debut Anniversary Fan Meeting