Nestled in The Source, a rapidly growing outdoor center located in Buena Park, California, popular Korean celebrity news outlet Dispatch has brought D’Festa to the United States for the first time ever. D’Festa, promoted as “The Ultimate K-Pop Experience,” is a multi-sensory event that features exclusive content from nine big K-Pop groups—ENHYPEN, TXT, Stray Kids, NCT DREAM, NCT 127, Twice, Seventeen, BTS and NU’EST. As the event’s slogan “It’s D’ifferent, It’s D’FESTA” promises, D’Festa is unlike any other K-Pop experience in the country to date. As updated on D’Festa’s social media page, the event is set to open to the public at the end of summer. With the event completely sold out, BruinLife went to check out the experience for ourselves during the VIP premiere of the inaugural D’Festa Los Angeles.
Friday, July 19, marked the opening of D’Festa Los Angeles to invited VIP guests and members of local media. At check-in, all attendees were given a bag of exclusive D’Festa merchandise that included a shirt, tote bag, photocard holder and an L folder. Each guest was allowed to pick a random photocard, echoing the popular culture of pulling random photocards from K-Pop albums. With excited attendees approaching each other to trade merchandise for their favorite K-Pop groups and idols, the experience began before the doors were even open.
Before entering, a special group of people involved in the creation of D’Festa hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony, including the mayor of Buena Park, Arthur C. Brown. The ceremony took place in front of the Sign Wall, a larger than life poster board featuring messages and signatures from all D’Festa idols. The Sign Wall was just one of the many photo opportunities for guests at the event.
The entrance of D’Festa successfully built excitement among guests, who were led through sliding doors into a foyer illuminated by blue LED lights. The entrance was another great photo opportunity for those who wanted to capture the name and logo of the event surrounded by fun lighting.
“The Exhibition”
The first section of D’Festa was “The Exhibition,” which showcased a number of different photographs and art exhibits of the featured idols. The first hallway featured a framed, signed color portrait of each K-idol. With the portraits being a different color scheme, pose and concept, and unique messages and signatures from the artists, the pictures felt special to each individual. The next exhibit contrasted nicely with the first, with close-up portraits shot in black and white D’Festa’s walls. A description of the exhibit emphasized D’Festa’s mission to showcase the true face and character of each artist by stripping away distracting poses, props or photo editing: a meaningful perspective on a highly popularized industry.
Next was the “Memory Room,” a mirrored hallway decorated from floor to ceiling with candid shots of the artists dating back to up to 10 years ago. The Memory Room was one of BruinLife’s favorites, as it took K-Pop fans and D’Festa guests down a nostalgic journey with some of their favorite groups. After the “Memory Room,” attendees could read messages and look at art from each K-idol made specially for D’Festa. To add to the special atmosphere, TV screens showed videos of each group creating these diary pages for D’Festa hang right above the display cases.
The Exhibition was capped off with two exclusive exhibits, the first being the concept photo gallery, where each group and member is photographed with a different theme. For example, K-Pop group Seventeen was photographed with flora and fauna themed props, such as animal statues and greenery. The concept photo gallery gave a similar feeling to when you flip through a K-Pop album photobook—except the pictures are six times the size.
The last feature of The Exhibition wing was the artist paintings, which was another favorite among attendees. The artist paintings are canvases filled with artwork and creative expression done by the hands of each K-Pop group. The paintings, paired with videos and pictures of the artists’ creative process, was a display like none other. It allowed audiences to see their favorite artists’ personalities in a new medium and new light. Furthermore, the artist paintings made up D’Festa’s exclusive merchandise, printed on shirts and tote bags available for purchase.
“The Experience”
The second section of the walk-through portion was called “The Experience,” which was the more interactive portion of the event. The first area was the “Be Together” photo room, a bench lined room that featured life size cut-outs of artists for fans to sit and take pictures with.
This section, as well as the “Artist Pic” photo booth section were especially engaging for LA fans, who were less likely to be able to attend signing events or meet artists in person. In the photo booth, which costed 10 dollars, fans posed with pre-taken artist pictures that appeared on the screen so it looked like fans and artists really posed together. This was an especially engaging highlight and is a great memory for fans to take home, although at an extra cost.
A large portion of “The Experience” was also “The Message to Artist” and “Sign Wall,” which displayed a logo wall for D’Festa was signed with messages from all 69 featured artists. On open white walls, attendees were able to write messages to artists in hopes that they would be able to read the kind words as another way to facilitate a sort of interaction between fan and artist. It geared the event back towards fans and provided a fun way for them to reciprocate the creativity that the artists display in the “The Exhibition.”
Just off of the message wall was the “Virtual Stage,” which mimicked the stage shown in the the concert movie later on. Complete with a mirror wall, it was another perfect photo-op, particularly when the projections build anticipation by showing sneak peaks of the concert film.
The “Gift Shop” and “The Gacha” sections were the last part of the experience before exiting the venue to look at the poster wall featuring the black and white photos. The Gacha machines were also an extra cost, but dispensed two small exclusive pins in each capsule.
The gift shop sold exclusive merchandise from D’Festa ranging from more reasonably priced items to pricier ones. BruinLife received some of the exclusive merchandise which was both high quality and rather functional.
“The Cafe”
Our D’Festa day continued on the third floor of The Source, where attendees were directed to “The Cafe,” for light refreshments provided by partner Old Ferry Donut. Each guest had a choice of donut, beverage and a fruit cup. Old Ferry Donut had their own cafe at The Source, the establishment collaborating with D’Festa to create a speciality donut that will be available for all D’Festa-goers. The “D-Donut” was a soft D-shaped donut filled with a tangy orange cream and topped with a dark chocolate glaze and oreo crumbs. The donut was light and airy, and the cream filling added the perfect hint of fruity sweetness to counterbalance the chocolate topping’s deep, bitter notes.
D’Festa attendees were also able to add a drink to their meal, with the choice of lemonade, cold brew and cold brew latte. The lemonade was more on the sour side, but refreshing nonetheless. While both the cold brew and cold brew latte were not our favorites, for attendees looking for something not sweet and more on the bitter side to compliment the sweet donuts, D’Festa’s coffee drinks fit the bill perfectly. Although The Cafe offered nothing spectacular, the snack and cold drink were much welcomed after a long day of walking around the exhibit.
“The Movie”
D’Festa’s culmination was “The Movie,” which ran for about 45 minutes and included performances by all nine groups which were likely recorded sometime in 2022. Each group performed around two songs of which about two-thirds of each were shown, and all performances were recorded on the D’Festa XR stage. D’Festa’s immersive virtual experience spoke to the emerging prevalence of virtual artist promotion and engagement, where music and visuals transcend live performance platforms. Camera angles included not only the performers, but also show off the virtual concert venue.
Although the virtual stage represented a step away from recording live concert performances, attendees could create a lively concert environment by bringing their band-specific light-sticks and standing in the aisles to dance.
For the VIP Experience, the movie was preceded by a performance by the young dance duo Carli and James, and American K-Pop trainee group “Starlight” from the training agency K-POP CENTER at The Source. These live performances highlighted an interesting bridge forming between K-Pop and overseas audiences, showcasing the growth of K-Pop as a global phenomenon.
Final Thoughts
In addition to fans sharing their love for artists, D’Festa crafted an environment well-suited for interacting with other fans. Much like at concerts, fans could trade merchandise like photo cards and engage in a welcoming community of others who love their favorite groups.
After the event, BruinLife had the chance to ask some attendees about their individual experience. TikToker/influencer Justin Han didn’t have any specific expectations when he arrived but enjoyed the event nonetheless, noting that he enjoyed the Gacha machines which marked a “cool way to show love” for people’s favorite artists.
Attendees also enjoyed the photo booth, which some noted gave “para-social vibes” with the interaction created between fans and their favorites. This perspective on the event shined a light on what the event head explained was an example of how K-Pop is a “platform to create global community.” D’Festa was an enjoyable experience for fans and non-fans alike, not only promoting K-Pop music but also promoting messages of community and artist individuality. Fans who prefer to be more immersed in mainly the music aspect of the K-Pop might be more inclined to buy tickets to a concert event such as KCON, however, fans looking for an interactive and unique showcase of the artists themselves (particularly of 3rd-Generation artists) will have a great time at D’Festa.
For updates on D’Festa’s opening, check out their official site and social media.
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Featured Image Photographed by Caleb Velasquez/BruinLife
