L.A.’s Hello82 Is Bridging the Gap Between K-Pop Artists and Fans (2024)

Tucked away on Beverly Boulevard in between Fairfax and Hanco*ck Park, K-Pop music and entertainment company Hello82‘s Los Angeles fan space has become a beacon for local fans.

On May 23, approximately 150 fans of the boy band Tomorrow X Together (TXT) gathered at that very fan space. By 1 p.m., the time registration was set to end, the energy inside the room was high.

At the beginning of May, Hello82 simply tweeted “LOS ANGELES, We’ll See You There May 23rd! RSVP link drops on May 6 2PM PT,” accompanied by a photo of five people in silhouette with the header “SAVE THE DATE.”

For fans of the five-piece group, hailing from Korean company Big Hit Music, a subsidiary of Hybe, TXT’s silhouettes were unmistakable. The group (comprising members Soobin, Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Taehyun, and HueningKai) spent the two days prior to the event playing sold-out shows of their ACT: Promise world tour at the Crypto.com Arena in downtown.

When the reservation link dropped (it was active from 2 p.m. May 6 until 11 a.m. May 7), the post invited MOA, the group’s fan base, to RSVP for the “#hello82_TXT_DanceChallenge with ‘Special Guests.'” The approximately 150 fans that were given the chance to attend were never explicitly told the group would be there.

The ostensible goal of the event was to film dance challenges with the group and fans for Hello82, which has a robust catalog of digital content on YouTube. Dance challenges have become a major part of K-pop culture, with artists typically filming key points of their choreography with other K-pop artists for shortform content like TikTok.

Participants were split into five sections, each representative of one of the group’s members, for the dance challenge portion. The event officially got underway just before 1:45 p.m. with local K-pop dance cover groups dancing to some of TXT’s biggest hits as a warm-up for the event. During the last song, TXT’s latest single “Deja Vu,” the cover groups all performed together before a countdown sounded and the group’s five members surprised the waiting crowd, dancing with the cover groups as the rest of their fans cheered them on from the waiting areas on the side.

Fans remained excited yet orderly and attentive to the staff’s directions while lining up to film challenges. TXT filmed a dance challenge with all participants to their song “I’ll See You There Tomorrow” from the group’s latest EP Minisode 3: Tomorrow, which landed them a No. 3 spot on the Billboard 200 chart.

In between challenges, TXT left the main floor, with fans cheering them as they went. Hello82 staff broke the participants into their five groups to create a large circle to film a dance challenge for TXT’s song “Happily Ever After,” filming both a version with the entire crowd and in the small groups.

For the small groups, TXT’s members returned one by one to act as the center of the circle, dancing along with their fans. Attendees could be heard thanking the staff, particularly the event’s announcer, as they were organized into their small groups, quickly changing formations when needed.

The first batch to film were filled with excitement as Soobin was announced as the TXT member assigned to that group. The 23-year-old ran around high-fiving every fan in the circle, something his fellow groupmates also did, before taking his spot in the middle. The same process followed in order with Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Taehyun — with fans lovingly cheering for the latter by his English name, Terry — and HueningKai.

Hello82 also selected eight people for a raffle; the company initially told fans it would be for a chance to do K-pop trivia. In reality, the eight winners got the chance to stay longer and film a piece of content with TXT for Hello82’s YouTube channel.

The company is no stranger to connecting K-pop groups directly with their fan bases, having held fan-artist events with K-pop acts such as Atee*z, Jini, P1Harmony and more in the past.

Earlier this year, Hello82 opened an Atlanta fan space and, according to its website, is working on opening a space in Berlin. The L.A. location, which features a full store for fans to purchase albums, merch and more, is located at 7323 Beverly Boulevard and is open Wednesday to Sunday.