Not too long ago, I became a VIP member of Live Nation under one of their local Las Vegas entertainment venues. (To be clear, this is different from VIP Nation; what I joined is closer to an exclusive club and not just an online account.) And yes, this is the same Live Nation that is involved in the antitrust litigation, United States, et al. v. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. & Ticketmaster Entertainment, LLC, No. 1:24-cv-03973 (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; May 23, 2024). … If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Anyway, I hate monopolies and anti-competitive business practices, so I hope that Live Nation gets broken up into smaller pieces and the court issues plentiful amounts of compensatory and punitive damages. However, that’s the justice system’s responsibility, not mine. In the meantime, I joined Live Nation’s paid annual VIP membership so I can enjoy some streamlined entertainment while it lasts. I signed up through a program specific to my home city of Las Vegas in collaboration with MGM Resorts International, but my perks extend nationwide across a variety of different Live Nation venues, lounges, concerts, and other events.
One such perk is that I get to attend shows for free at the House of Blues Las Vegas inside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino (I obviously functionally “pre-paid” for it by paying the membership dues, but there are no further charges for tickets afterwards). I think this system is nice because it encourages me to go to shows that I otherwise wouldn’t attend if I had to buy tickets one by one. And thus, that is how I randomly ended up seeing ARTMS perform at the Las Vegas stop of their world tour, Art of BLUE BLOOD.
I’ve never really been a K-pop fan, but recently, I’ve been enjoying listening to LE SSERAFIM’s music and watching clips of their performances from their current PUREFLOW world tour. I’m also familiar with BLACKPINK and find their music to be fun, though that is probably more attributable to the fact that I think Rosé (Roseanne Park, 박채영) is one of the best singer-songwriters in the world, and she is a member of that group. Anyway, the point is, my understanding of K-pop is very limited and surface-level, so I went into this ARTMS concert a bit blind.
Historically, one of the things I have hated about the K-pop industry is how agencies treat their artists as merchandise to market and sell to the general public. I am big on personal freedoms, liberties, and expression, and I do not like the idea of a corporation building a roster of teenagers, stripping away their individual identities in lieu of group recognition, and grinding them through a gruesome and borderline-exploitative system. For the group members who are in their 20s, I guess you could say “they knew what they were getting into,” but an overwhelming majority of these girls are actual children.
I’m not trying to be righteous here and saying that I’m intentionally vetoing K-pop or anything. The reason I’m not interested in K-pop is that I naturally just don’t really find the system interesting, so it doesn’t really ever retain my attention. I, as a 34-year-old man, find nothing that draws me towards watching a bunch of 16-year-olds dancing on a stage, all of whom look nearly identical because they’re all chasing the same perceived Korean beauty standard and are getting elective cosmetic medical procedures to get closer to the subjectively idealized “perfect” face.
With all that being said, my “red flag radar” did not really go off with ARTMS, and I ended up liking their concert. Although they still visually looked very young, the energy they gave off was a lot more professional and mature. ARTMS debuted as a group only just over two years ago, but they apparently had somewhat of a storied history before that, so I’m sure that prior experience helped a lot with the establishment of the current stage of their careers. Either way, I was able to enjoy their performance because it felt like I was watching actual musicians and dancers, rather than just a bunch of kids playing on a stage.
The show was scheduled to begin at 7 PM, and doors opened at 6 PM. I had some errands to do earlier on in the day and was short of time, so rather than walking, I grabbed my truck and drove on some back roads from my Strip condo to the Mandalay Bay. Once I arrived and walked inside, it was shortly after 6 PM and the line to get in was literally hundreds upon hundreds of people long, snaking back and forth to the retail area on the east side of the building. Usually, people will trickle in little by little when doors open, but for some reason, Ticketmaster put the event time as the doors open time rather than the show time. Thus, I think people (reasonably) thought the show was starting at 6 PM and not 7 PM, so they arrived and lined up very early.
When my concierge team secured this ticket for me, they put me up on the mezzanine level in one of the back rows. I specifically requested to not be in the general admission standing room because I wanted to enjoy the music peacefully and while seated, away from the crowd. I’m also conscious about not occupying prime spots myself, especially if it’s for a show with a dedicated fanbase; for example, when I saw LE SSERAFIM perform at BlizzCon 2026 for the convention’s closing act, I intentionally sat one section back so their FEARNOT could get front-row seats. For this show at the House of Blues, the on-site staff moved me from Section 300 down to some glass box seats head-on and closer to the stage, presumably as a discretionary VIP membership perk. The best part about this was that I believe those seats are not for sale and are reserved to be used as handicap accommodations on a case-by-case basis; this meant that I got to have an amazing view in a very private and comfortable area while also not taking away a good seat from their OURII.
When I arrived, I went straight to the entrance, showed my membership card, and was let in right away by security without needing to wait in line. This meant I had plenty of time to get settled in before the show started. I used that time to order some food from the bar. As expected, it was quite overpriced, but I was busy working and running errands all day and hadn’t had a chance to eat yet. On top of that, I feel like ordering food at a venue, to some extent, is sort of part of the experience of attending a live event. Also, I guess one of the benefits of them letting me skip the line was that I bought their overpriced food, because if I had to wait in line with everyone else, I would’ve just left to get food elsewhere and then come back closer to 7 PM.
Throughout the 50ish minutes I had left before the show, I was approached by a surprising number of people who just wanted to say hi and chat. To be clear, these were not my fans who recognized me from my own work and wanted a selfie or autograph or anything; these were just regular concert-goers who seemed to want to be friendly and meet new people. What was extra endearing was that it seemed like half these people were extremely shy, but were forcing themselves to step out of their comfort zones and socialize.
A few of them even offered me “freebies,” which, in K-pop culture, are little fan-made gifts made voluntarily out of enthusiasm that are distributed among concert-goers to establish a sense of community (I ended up respectfully declining all of them and told them that I wanted to make sure they had plenty to hand out to the OURII). I don’t know if I just looked extra lonely or something, but I was quite surprised at the level of initiative they took to be nice to me and make sure I was having a positive experience.
Everyone who approached me to chat and offer gifts was a woman. The men, on the other hand… were a bit strange. To be clear, no men came up to me at any point, so it’s not like I had any weird interactions or anything. But remember how I said that I was moved to a glass box? This meant that I had a commanding, top-down view of Sections 200-208, and especially of Section 204 directly in the middle. I could see everybody‘s phone screen in Section 204, whether they were texting, scrolling social media, or filming the show. There were a lot of people recording the show, but some of the men were just zooming in extra close to certain areas of ARTMS members’ bodies, rather than recording the actual performance. I understand that there will always be people like that, and encountering creeps is one of the expected “workplace hazards” of being a performer, but it was still quite disappointing and unsettling.
So, with all my rambling thoughts out of the way, here is a photo recap of the show.
By the time I entered the concert hall, there were already a ton of people in the standing room. K-pop concerts usually come with their own class of VIP tickets, so I imagine these are the people who bought one-off VIP access with the agency (as opposed to getting it through Live Nation like me) and then rushed in to make sure they could get barricade access right at the front.
This is the food I ended up getting—Bluesville chicken tenders, fries, and a Diet Pepsi. The entrée was US$14.00, the beverage was $5.00, sales tax was $1.59, and I gave a $3.00 gratuity, resulting in a grand total of $23.59.
After finishing my food, I got up to throw out my trash, then snapped this angled photo of the House of Blues. The general admission standing room was filling up fast, but it seemed like there were still a decent number of unsold tickets up in the mezzanine. With that being said, to my understanding, most shows at the House of Blues don’t even open up the mezzanine level and everyone is downstairs in GA, so the fact that there were a decent number of people up in the mezzanine at all is an indication that the turnout for ARTMS was quite a bit higher than it is for a lot of the other performers who come through the House of Blues.
The show started with Act 1, during which they performed three songs: “Hyper Crush,” “BURN,” and “Blue Blood.”
Afterwards, there was a quick talking segment where the members introduced themselves and interacted with the crowd. Shown in the photo below, from left to right, are HeeJin (Jeon Hee-jin, 전희진), Kim Lip (Kim Jung-eun, 김정은), JinSoul (Jeong Jin-sol, 정진솔), and Choerry (Choi Ye-rim, 최예림).
They then wrapped up Act 1 with three additional songs: “Candy Crush,” “Verified Beauty,” and “Sparkle.”
For Act 2, each of the members performed solo and duo songs. HeeJin started with “sAvioR.”
Next was Kim Lip with “Twilight.”
HeeJin came back out with Kim Lip for a duet performance of “Be Natural.”
Afterwards, JinSoul performed “Singing in the Rain,” and Choerry performed “Eclipse.”
For their duet, JinSoul and Choerry sang “Tango.”
All four members then returned to the stage to chat with the audience a bit more.
To close Act 2, the group performed “Starlight” and “Not Friends.”
After a wardrobe change, Act 3 began with “Icarus Gang” and “Born Stunner.”
During their talking segment, I noticed a few fans in Section 202 with a sign that said “HOT GIRLS ♥ ARTMS.”
The support staff came out to help take a picture with the audience from the stage, then the members wrapped up Act 3 with performances of “Obsessed” and “Icarus.”
The Encore started with “Pixel Memory.” I thought this was a very fun song, and it was my favorite out of the entire show. I may or may not be currently listening to it on loop while I’m writing this blog post…
During the Encore phase, K-pop groups usually do a wardrobe change to tour apparel so they can promote their merchandise. At first, I was a little confused as to why the list of dates and cities was on the front of the shirt, but then they explained during their talking segment that they wanted to change things up, so they cut up and customized the shirts that day.
The Encore concluded with performances of “Virtual Angel,” “Air,” and “love4eva.”
Apparently, the fans at the barricade wanted to be sprayed with water. After Choerry asked a few times to make sure that everyone was on board, she cracked open a bottle of Fiji water and started spraying the audience.
After performing for about two hours and five minutes, the show ended with their final goodbyes.
Here is a photo of the entrance to the House of Blues, as well as the electronic billboard showing promotional material for the Art of BLUE BLOOD world tour.
I already covered most of my thoughts in the introduction, but overall, I ended up enjoying the show more than I expected. I was pleased to see that ARTMS appears to be a group of real musicians and artists, rather than just a manufactured, parasociality-farming entity like a lot of other K-pop groups.
I heard that it is rare for K-pop groups to make stops in Las Vegas due to Los Angeles being a primary tour stop hotspot for their target audience, and associated radius restrictions often extending as far as Las Vegas. However, if ARTMS ever returns to Las Vegas, or if there are other K-pop groups that come through that have a similar philosophy of focusing on true music and performing arts, then I am definitely open to seeing another show again in the future.