#swc6

Hmm. tldr version is, I'm not a fan of the venue especially in the current concert climate.

You can fully expect that they will block out some of the best seats in the arena for the livestreaming rig - you can see the empty void in front of the stage in the pics posted by the official shinee acc. This was even more depressing in person. Honestly, a huge issue with Taemin's latest concert in general was the prioritisation of Beyond Live over the in-person attendees, i.e. ridiculously long gaps between each song (like up to a minute at times!) and just performance things that looked cool on video but were really meh irl. Personally, I think the decision to stream every single day was the worst they could have made (and don't get me started on the prices they were asking for it, and will ask again), there's always been a difference in the way they behave on a stream vs just during a non-livestreamed show and now they all have scripted ments that don't even result in good subs for the shawols watching at home.

In terms of getting to the arena, it's pretty much at the end of the world comparing to the Olympic Gymnastics Arena - which is relatively close to the city center, well connected via multiple transportation routes, lots of restaurants/cafes around and the grounds are honestly huge. Inspire Arena is secluded and I know a lot there was a lot of issues with getting there for people (as it's connected to the Incheon Airport via shuttle, I was attending with a global package ticket and it took approx 2h for us to get there on the coach SM provided). Then it's a very long corridor and a tiny waiting space with three billboards you can take pics at, and after the show they kick you out on the other side of the building straight into coaches so there isn't a lot of opportunity to take the last few pics/just have that moment of the fizzling out concert hype. Kshawols were organising buses that'd take them from the city center to the venue in groups because it was both freezing and a nightmare to get to. Like idk, I do love the pre-concert mingling and exchanging little gifts like photocards or fans, this was almost impossible during metamorph. In comparison, one of my fondest memories of SWC6 in the summer is shawols braiding each other's hair before the concert, not something that's easy for me to imagine happening at the Inspire Arena tbh. Though I might be proved wrong in May.

Finally, while Yes24 isn't wonderful it still let international fans buy normal tickets for the concerts, Inspire Arena is linked to Melon ❤️Payments are a nightmare, there is no paypall for example (and Korea loves to reject foreign cards even if they say they accept them). The site itself is wonky as hell and will throw you out of the queue for nothing. Metamorph is the only time I had to buy global package for a shinee concert because it was genuinely impossible to get it via normal ways. And sincerely, global package isn't worth its price these days (the little lego keyring was cool but not that cool).