Yes, it's happening: EXO'luXion Round 2!

Not part of a "sea" or an "ocean" this time, but part of a galaxy. #exo #exoluxion

A photo posted by Athena (@agothena) on Jun 12, 2015 at 8:31am PDT

THIS IS REAL, YES, IT'S HAPPENING. I AM GOING TO WATCH EXO LIVE IN MANILA. THIS IS NOT A DRILL, I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

When rumours of EXO'luXion coming to the Philippines first came out, I was pretty skeptical because Manila already missed out on The Lost Planet, and the encore concerts in Seoul were slated for this December. Precisely the reason why I made sure that I would watch the Taipei leg of the tour. So can you imagine my outrage and excitement when the announcement for EXO'luXion in Manila came out? Probably not. But I can tell you it was full of "THEY'RE COMING HERE OH MY GOD DO I HAVE MONEY NO WAIT I ALREADY WATCHED EXO BEFORE SHOULD I STILL WATCH WHAT IF THEY SING ANOTHER FILIPINO SONG?" and a bunch of other incoherent, overly dramatic gurgling in front of my poor, poor laptop.

I was torn, of course, because I've already watched EXO twice– once in 2012 during SMTown, and once last June for the Taipei run of EXO'luXion. Do I really need to watch them again? And once again, my brain fired back with "WHAT IF THEY SING ANOTHER FILIPINO SONG" and I am weak. SO WEAK. So naturally, faced with a dilemma, I turned to my trusted friends hoping that at least one of them would be my conscience. 

I quickly learned that none of my friends are conscience-material.

With advice ranging from "Manood ka na." and "You have the money, the time, people to go with, and you want to go anyway, so go." to "THEY'RE ALREADY COMING HERE NO NEED TO GET ON A GODDAMN PLANE" (Toreja, 2015), I realized that literally, nothing was holding me back and YES. I WILL WATCH THIS CONCERT. 

Psyched as I was, I completely forgot about the torture that is TICKETING. Getting tickets for EXO'luXion Taipei was a nightmare, considering how Taiwanese fans are much more enthusiastic than Filipino fans and that I spent HOURS going to 7-11 and back home because only a limited number of tickets are released per hour. At some point I gave up buying tickets, but at around 7pm, I lucked out and still managed to get not-entirely-terrible seats. 

Luckily (?!), the concert was sponsored by Globe, so subscribers were given a chance to register and get promo codes to the ticket pre-selling a day before the actual ticketing. So, obviously, I registered as fast as I could, and glared at my phone whenever a message that had nothing to do with the promo code came in. Luckily enough, my friends and I all received our promo codes on time.

I bought my (and my friends') tickets at SM Masinag, and it was a much more pleasant experience than buying in Taipei. Okay, so I was stressing out a lot, but who can blame me? There was this one lady who was insisting on buying tickets without a promo code that she spent 10 minutes arguing with the ticketing lady, WHO PROBABLY HAD ENOUGH ON HER PLATE DEALING WITH OVERLY EXCITED AND FRANTIC FANS ALL MORNING, and all I could think of was the seats slipping through my grasp with each minute wasted. Eventually, she left and well, I was left worrying about the other fans who took a REALLY long time to choose where to sit. You know that feeling when you're in a really long queue in McDonald's and then when it's the turn of the person right in front of you, that's when they start thinking about what they want to get? It was that kind of feeling. 

So here I am with an important piece of advice to fans who plan on going to concerts: Have a plan. A Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, and so on. Chances are, if the artist or group you want to see are pretty big acts, tickets will sell out fast. The more time you spend thinking of which seats to get, the more seats are getting snatched up by someone else. Also, it's consideration for those who are queued up behind you. Got it? Got it. 

Moving on, though I was late to the ticket pre-selling by two hours, I still managed to secure tickets in our preferred area. Lower Box B, holla. Honestly, any other seats would be too far, or too expensive. Yo, EXO, I love you with all my heart, not my wallet. 

So here I am. Way, way too excited at the prospect of seeing my boys again. The Taipei concert was fun, but honestly, as a Filipino fan, it would be much more AMAZING to watch here in Manila. Though Filipino fans don't really get to do successful fan projects during concerts like the Korean, Japanese, or Taiwanese fans do, the Philippine crowd is unparalleled when it comes to sheer energy and volume. Forget fanchants. We'll sing along to the whole song, because that's how we do it. Orayt. Rakenroll to da world.