Bangtan Mumbai ARMYs Meetup pt. 2 💜

Hello everyone!

 The Mumbai Bangtan ARMYs Meetup was a success. A DEFINITE SUCCESS. The event even had a small show where some ARMYs showed their talents in dancing and singing. The best performance was a girl with a guitar singing a cover of one of the songs.

How many teenagers are out there who can pull off a meetup, with random people all over a city getting together, making sure they're not alone, giving them a chance to make new friends, and even after the event, still being in contact and supporting everyone? 
Not many.

But two girls, aged 17 and 19, did it.

Since I'm doing Journalism, I wanted to cover this Meetup and write about it. About the influence BTS has on this nation. Atleast, on this city's young and old minds. I believe this was the first step. So, I asked Devika Pagdhare (17) and Pranavy Yadav (19) if they could spare some time and answer some of my questions. As they were pretty busy making the show go on, I emailed them. 

The two girls talked about their love for BTS, how the seed of a meetup was sown and the flower bloomed, the difficulties they faced and their passion for organising such events getting stronger!

If you thought organizing is easy, especially for a BTS event, you're wrong. 

1) How did you come up with an idea of organizing this event?

Devika: I was just a K-pop fan like any other fan. I surf YouTube a lot and there was this one time I noticed Aghase (GOT7 fans/fandom) playing songs in a public park. All of them dancing to it and enjoying it. There were just 16-17 of them but the joy on their faces was so pleasant to watch! So, with this, the idea of a get-together got into in my mind.
Pranavy: I came to Mumbai (from Delhi) as a student thinking I'll get to attend lots of K-Pop events in Mumbai. I mean it's Mumbai! Everything happens here!  Or at least, that's what I thought. 

It was quite a shock when I found out that no BTS concert screening event has happened in Mumbai yet (not that I know of at least). 

I came across BangtanBombay and Devika, the one who started it all, was looking for volunteers to organise an army get-together. 

I still remember our first meeting at Shivaji Park, Dadar (It was the first time I took a local train alone and scared my dad who had told me to never do that). Anyway, the idea was to do it in a public space like this park, bring speakers and jam to BTS songs. 

Since the level of expectations I had were of the concert screening held in Delhi, one thing led to another and the team pulled off a whole 30k event!

2) What were your expectations? Did you believe that you'd get as many people, even of different ages, as you did?
Devika: We seriously didn't expect this coming. While doing registrations, we were completely shocked that people of almost all ages would be coming for the event. BTS is that great a group to have fans in all ages. They're super awesome.
Pranavy: To be honest, we were more excited about the idea of doing the event, the reality of which didn't sink in until it ended. But looking at the numbers, we were expecting about 50 something people. Even when we started registrations, we were pretty scared because we received enough money to pay the advance for the venue, but the real question was will we reach the end goal?

Tables turned so fast that we had to turn people down! Since it was our first time doing something like this, as a precaution we decided to set the maximum limit of people to 100. But thanks to the ARMYs' overwhelming response and my ability to be bad at saying No, the numbers went up to 200!! I did get scolded a bit for being weak enough to still say yes but that's great since it prevented overbooking! 

3) Did you face any trouble in organizing?

Devika: Yes. In the beginning we did face a lot of problems since nobody was into organising events or such. It was difficult to guess the number of people who would come and how big a venue would be needed. But once we released the flyer, we got an amazing response from everyone.
Pranavy: Yes! The person who had the concert screening with them couldn't come at the end moment due to an emergency! Our team literally stayed up the whole night trying to get it! We got it by some miracle at the end moment. We had decided to start the event with Namjoon's UN speech, but there were some audio issues, that sent us in panic but luckily our MC handled it well.

Time management is something we realised we had to work on.

4) How has BTS helped you? (Preferably a short answer) (I said 'short' because I know how ARMYs have an endless list of it)

Devika: Their music is just like therapy. It's always so comforting to listen to their songs. I feel they are like chargers giving out positivity. They help us in all ways may it be a chase towards dreams, Teaching us slice of life lessons, motivating, teaching us to love and accept ourselves, etc. Basically giving us all the empowerment we need through their music.

Pranavy: BTS has helped me in seeing the mirror and accepting my flaws. The sad reality is that no one willingly wants to admit their wrongs. But it's toxic in the long run, so I'm grateful that I've learned self-acceptance from them! 

5) What were your thoughts after the event?
Devika: It was amazing to have 173 ARMYs attend this event enjoy themselves. The place was so much full of positive vibes and love. Everyone's eyes had this glow of joy and enthusiasm. This fandom is so beautiful that they make everything and everyone feel like home and a family. After this event, we're planning to have more events which will be bigger, better and brighter. Because I think we all need a place to belong, a place for acceptance and by this event, we are bringing people of the same interest closer by forming such a positive community.

Pranavy: I was too tired to think to be honest, but I remember the ending of the event. Everyone was huddled near the stage on the ground and we were all singing Ephiphany. I remember Devika's emotional speech of how it started with such a tiny idea, but with so much love we created something bigger. I remember the sense of unity I felt with so many people I had never met before in my life, as we sang along. And I remember that it was absolutely beautiful. 

My only wish for the future is to recreate that beautiful evening again with ARMY!


Here's some pictures and videos to show you how beautiful the room looked at the end of the event with lights off, people sitting on the ground, waving their flashlights in the rhythm of the song, Epiphany, and singing along the volunteers on stage.

                                                   

Now, time for what I did with my first ever photocards!

I got the Yoongi photocard from the precious soul @ot7chimmy who was handing it out at the PVR theatre in Phoenix at the time of BTS World Tour: Love Yourself in Seoul movie! 💜

Till you're looking forward to another event by them, check out the Paper Planes Fest, which will have a KPop event with random dance and play + merch and album stalls!!

Cheers to the team of BangtanBombay in organising the event and turning it into a success! Turning it into a safe haven for ARMYs in Mumbai!!