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Last Saturday (10th July 2010), was the showcase of 2AM, a South-Korean ballad group under company JYP entertainment at IMM. International pop-star Rain, sensational pop-group Wonder Girls and boy band 2PM are among the more popular artistes that JYP has produced. To get access to the showcase, there was a limited number of albums available at HMV together with the showcase tickets. Out of the 3000 albums sold, there were 300 lucky fans that could get their albums autographed.

Even though the showcase started officially at 5.30pm, at 7am, there were already close to 400 fans queuing up outside IMM shopping centre. According to a security guard, R. Benoj, in his 30s, the first few in line started queuing up at 2am in the morning. As the queue was blocking the main entrance of the mail, security guards and management staff were deployed to help disperse the queue.

Cheryl Ma, 20 and her cousin, Chrystel Ma, 16 were among those who came in the morning to queue up. When asked what is the craziest thing that she would do for her idols, Cheryl answered that she has traveled to Malaysia and Philippines just to watch her favourite boyband, Super Junior perform. She adds that as long as she has the opportunity to watch and the capability to pay, she’ll do anything.

At 8.30am, the management took charge of the situation and quickly controlled the crowd that was getting bigger by the minute. From the main entrance, the fans got into lines of 2 and orderly made their way into the back of the shopping center and waited for about 3 hours until the doors to the garden plaza on the rooftop was opened. There, they quickly rushed to the front in a bid to get the best places.

Chia Rui Qi, 16, spent her time making placards and banners for her idol. This placard says “My baby, Jinwoonie.” Jinwoon, who recently turned 19 is the youngest, also known as the “maknae” of the four-member band. Placards like this could be spotted everywhere, almost every fan had one in their hands. However, in order not to block the people standing behind, the official 2AM fan club, IAMSG had banned the holding of placards during the performances.

At 3pm, there were dark clouds hovering above the venue, threatening to pour any minute but this did not deter the increasing amount of fans that were coming into the garden plaza. It started raining at about 4.30pm, 1 hour before the event.

At 5pm, 30 minutes before the stars were bound to arrive,  everyone suddenly just stood up and rushed to the front. As a result, all of us in the middle were squashed and it was certainly not the best position to be in because you could smell all kinds of scents, from shampoo to body odour. Thank god for the ventilator on the top, because without it, I think some of us would have fainted.

The fans immediately broke into a series of chants and chorus when the four idols finally took stage. “The 30-minute performance certainly did not justify the hours and hours of waiting, I could’ve stayed home to do my work” Jazreel Tan, 20, regrets sacrificing her work for this showcase.