Fan Banner Project: Tomorrow X Together✜

Assembling the Avengers for the STAR in the U.S. Showcase Orlando

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Personal Thanks

This amazing project and result would have never been completed without the creativity and help of our team that led Twitter fanbase from 2018-to 2021. @TXTUnitedStates, which is now sadly suspended. I loved being able to be a part of and work with such bright and talented women. We may have been 17 but we made the impossible possible!

Thank you Head Admin Jenna Janokwitz, Artist Madison Fung, Translator Eleanor Yoon!

What is a Fan Banner?

A fan banner is a fanmade banner that is passed out to fans during a concert. The banner or slogan is supposed to be held up during a specific song containing a message or lyric snippet that is meaningful to both the artist and fan. The message is usually a pun or inside joke and is probably one of the hardest parts of the project. These projects are mainly directed by fan led accounts or fan bases with a large following on Twitter. They are not for profit work and involve many weeks of planning, organization, design, as well as obtaining permission from the agencies and promoters involved. I have included some examples from other famous K-pop groups. Currently, this trend has started to reach western audiences and singers like Harry Styles and Shawn Mendes have incorporated fan banner projects.

Phase 1: Creating Something from Nothing

As soon as the concert dates were revealed for the Tomorrow X Together Showcase in the US, our team that runs @TXTUnitedStates decided to do a fan banner project. After discussing with other fanbases in our TXT fanbase union, over 30 different fan accounts across the world. We decided that every different city should do a specific song from their debut album The Dream Chapter: Star. I personally picked Blue Orangeade,the first song on their album, since the main message was that despite being so different

(like blue and orange on opposite sides of the color wheel) our differences make us come together. I felt that it was very applicable since as a Korean Pop group touring America most of their fans are coming from different backgrounds.

The design process was even more tedious as our team of four had very different ideas on which direction our project should go in. Back in 2019 we were also all very busy high school students and had limited knowledge on how to use Photoshop or Illustrator. After a week of brainstorming, we had decided to do a Mason Jar concept (my personal touch) filled with Orangeade and blue background with palm trees. The back was inspired by the "Welcome to Florida" sign seen on the highway. To cater to the need of Tomorrow X Together's diverse fans we included 5 different translations of our instructions.

Phase 2: Fundraising

The Plaza Live in Orlando where the concert would be held has a capacity of 1,250 people in order to cover the cost of printing and delivering we needed to start a fundraising campaign.

Because the printing company we used would only let us print certain amounts, we had to print 2,000 banners. To start, we created a separate account @TXTFlorida to mainly promote our project. Our fundraising efforts included creating stickers as an incentive for people to donate. We used a 4 tier system for donations, the highest amount being $15 came with three stickers. The initial goal was $400 to cover the shipping and printing however, due to the high demand for our stickers we increased the goal to $500 in order to print the second round of stickers. With the help of our google doc, we could keep a list of the people who donated. We met our goal rather quickly which made our team very surprised, but proud of our efforts.

Phase 3: Reaching out into the Oblivion

Sadly, a problem we encountered along the way was the lack of response from the venue The Plaza, and the Big Hit Entertainment team. Without approval for our project, we would not be able to pass out our banners to the fans walking into the venue. We did not receive a response for over two months but decided to continue with the project!

Phase 4: D-Day

The craziest part of this whole journey was that only two people in our team could go to the concert, however, we both had our AP Calculus exam the day of the concert.

So, only Jenna and I co-administrators of @TXTUnitedStates basically had to do the impossible and take our test (we both passed luckily) before hopping on in our cars and driving four hours to Orlando.

Once we got to the venue they never "officially approved" our project. We were kicked out and had to distribute the banners from the Moes park lot next door. It was still an incredible experience we had a conversation with the Big Hit Entertainment team and they complimented our work. We also got interviewed by Mnet Entertainment

(one of the top television and broadcasting companies in Korea) for the TXT Youtube Miniseries. Sadly, our interview was edited out, but you can see our banners at the show!

Despite the ups and downs of our banner project and the hundreds of extra banners we had to haul back to the hotel, it was an experience of a lifetime!

#TXT #FanBannerProject