[Featured Blog] BTD’s First Cup Sleeve Event
Two weeks ago, Tuesday the 13th of June was the 10th debut anniversary of BTS, one of the most prominent K-pop groups worldwide at this moment. If you want to know more about the group, read the article A Guide to BTS Members (2023). To celebrate that special occasion, my roommate, who happens to be the manager of Beyond The Dance Belgium, organized the first cup sleeve event in and around Leuven to commemorate this huge milestone for the Belgian Army’s.
Beyond The Dance Belgium, or BTD, is an energetic dance group based in Leuven, Belgium. The group was founded in the fall of 2018 by friends who share a love for K-pop, especially BTS. This year they changed their focus and started offering KPOP Dance classes for Kpop fans in and around Leuven at an affordable price.
The cup sleeve event was hosted at Sibz, a charming café and lunch spot located in the center of Leuven.
The Event
As soon as you walked in, Jana welcomed you, one of the volunteers, who had some fun surprises prepared for them and gave each and everyone a short introduction about the event. After you were brought up to speed about everything the event offered, you could explore the various activities or, if you bought a donation package, come to my stand to pick up their cup sleeve and goodies.
The first activity was a lovely photo wall. You would create meaningful memories in front of these beautiful whales showing BTS through the years.
After taking a picture with friends or other Army’s, you had a chance to get their favorite images at the photocard lucky draw. Every card featuring art by its_a_me_morgane on the back had a different BTS picture. You could take a solo shot of one of the members or a group picture. At this lucky draw, people could pick out photo cards without knowing which member/members were featured on the front of the cards. The joy on the people’s faces was unforgettable when they chose their favorite members. There were also some handmade keychains that they could purchase with different pictures of the members on them.
After they got their lucky draw cards, they had an opportunity to go to the Toploader Deco Station to get one or multiple top loaders to protect their cards with and decorate them with many fun stickers.
You could also join the raffle, at which you had a chance at winning amazing prizes such as a free Daebak subscription box or gift cards, BT21 or Tiny Tan plushies, BTS Albums, Korean skincare, and much more.
Following this, visitors could test their BTS knowledge by taking a BTS Quiz. The quiz made all the fans wonder how much they knew about BTS. The quiz had 20 questions about BTS and a bonus question about ARMY. Not all of them were easy, but they brought out the true fans and made many fans want to get to know BTS better.
The final activity that you could participate in was called “BTS vs BTS”. Everyone could vote for their favorite BTS era, pets, albums and more.
Before leaving you could also write a kind message to BTS. Pictures of the messages will soon be posted on Weverse and hopefully, the BTS members will see these.
Behind The Scenes
One of the biggest things I noticed at the event is the vast difference between cup sleeve events in Asia and internationally. While Asia cup sleeve events are mainly used to promote the artist internationally, it’s a place where fans come together and gets to know their community, make new friends, and show their love and support for their favorite groups.
Seeing behind the scenes how a cup sleeve event is organized made me realize how in this part of the world, cup sleeve events are genuinely created out of love for both the members and the fandom. They love to watch others enjoy themselves while bonding over their biases, and it is a captivating experience for someone who isn’t actively following K-pop.
So much hard work was done behind the scenes to make this event a success. The doubt, nervousness, negotiations, and debates surrounding all that needed to be done and whether people would show up were the more challenging moments, but seeing the event come together and having over 90 people show up that day made it all worth it!
All in all, the event was a huge success. People from all over Belgium and the Netherlands came, making many new friends and having a great experience. No person left the event without a smile.
If you want to know more or are in the neighborhood, visit the BTD website and sign up for a dance class! If you want to stay updated with future events that Beyond The Dance will organize, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!
A little about the writer:
Hi you! My name is Joy, and I’m the founder of the blog called dailydoseofjoy.com, A faith-based lifestyle blog on which I enjoy sharing all my life experiences, tips, and favorite shows. I am a vast K-Drama lover and K-culture enthusiast. I love documenting the new things I do in my life, and this cup sleeve event wasn’t any different. It was my first-ever cup sleeve event, so I wanted to write about it and had the honor of posting it on the Daebak Daily! I hope you enjoyed this post, and if you want to read more of my posts, check out my website.
Big love,
Joy
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