It’s been a wild and eventful 2018, Soju friends.
Now we’re settling down for a short and well-deserved winter’s nap, and we won’t be coming out of hibernation until January 8, 2019. So, we thought that until then we’d give you your Soju fix with our Greatest K-Pop Hits of 2018. Let's take a look.
The More the Merrier
We started 2018 as four and ended it as a Soju team of 12 (I'm also counting in our head graphic designer Dejan aka 'Cereal Killer' and photographer John aka 'Fiji Water Connoisseur' who are not featured on our website (yet)). I am so grateful to have so many wonderful people on our team; behind those cute faces are even cuter humans that are an absolute pleasure to work with and to be around.
Our little Soju clan will grow once more as we will be adding four more team mates very soon. Maybe it's you?
A Website Refresh
One of our goals this year was to update our website as the old version was in a dire need of a facelift. We added new features such as:
Blog - now you can keep up with the exciting world of K-Pop while commuting to/from work/school 👀
K-Pop in Vancouver - don't miss another cool K-Pop event ever again 🙌
FAQ - get all the answers to your burning questions right away 😉
Chat Bot - do you have an inquiry that needs our immediate attention? We got you fam 🤗
Newsletter - get all Soju news + special Soju discount codes straight to your inbox! No more scrolling through Facebook feed to look for those special discounts 👌
K-Pop's Top Choreographers Worth 1Million
Back in May we partnered up with THEHOUSECON to bring K-Pop's top two choreographers Sori Na and Bongyoung Park to Vancouver's Scotiabank Dance Centre. Both Sori and Bong used to dance at 1Million - a Korean powerhouse studio based in Seoul that opened four years ago and quickly gained popularity online by posting dance routines and tutorials on YouTube for their 13 million YouTube subscribers. Sori Na and Bongyoung Park were absolute sweethearts and it was our utmost pleasure to have them here for a day filled with dance workshops and meet + greet topped with a live performance at Venue. We definitely stepped out of our comfort zone with this venture but we are so glad we were able to offer something completely different from what we usually do.
Vancouver's Got More (Korean) Talent
It's safe to say that Sori and Bongyoung jumpstarted our desire to introduce more Korean talent to our Soju audience. We continued this trend by bringing two Korean talents BROOKLYN and KEEZY to Venue stage shortly after.
After all this 'Bringing Korean Talent to Vancouver' practice, we were definitely reddy for Reddy when Astro Entertainment reached out to us with the collab opportunity.
Not only did we have Reddy performing at Soju Sunday, Soju Sunday also ended up in Reddy's Stand by You MV and we were definitely not reddy for that (but it certainly was a very nice surprise 😍). Say whaaat!!!
Love + Boos + Ho Ho Hos
2018 was also about new Soju Sunday themes. We proudly organized our first Pride Soju Sunday (and we will definitely do so again in 2019 while donating a chunk of profit to an organization supporting LGBTQAI2S+ community).
In October we turned into avid Halloween revelers and threw a Spooky Soju Halloween Party for the first time away from our usual Venue nightclub location, this time at MIA in Gastown.
We also embraced Christmas 2018 spirit by organizing a holiday themed Soju Sunday with all the usual perks that got Christmas makeover - Christmas themed drinks, Christmas themed balloon drop and also BTS Christmas tree ornaments you could take home with you to add lil K-Pop vibe to your Xmas vegetation.
Spotted on Spotify
If you attended at least one Soju Sunday, you (hopefully) noticed that we try our hardest to make each event about you — our Soju fam — as much as possible. We are obsessed (in a healthy way) with the feedback because knowing about our shortcomings is the only way to continue improving. One area where we fell short this year were song requests.
To fix that, we devoted and will continue to devote two full hours of each Soju Sunday to playing the songs you love and want to dance to. To prove that we take this commitment seriously, we took each of your song suggestions and created a Spotify playlist that was then sent to our DJ for mixing. This year we produced six Spotify playlists and you can check all of them here.
More Music Variety
Not only did we focus more on playing your songs, we also added another music genre to the mix: for the past five Soju Sunday events you got to enjoy Korean hip-hop from Show Me the Money show which we played in the Dark Room upstairs on top of playing K-Pop downstairs.
Building Community Partnerships
This year Soju Events also concentrated on working more with local university clubs and societies that focus on promoting K-Pop and Asian culture in greater Vancouver area. Huge shout-out goes to UBC Chinese Varsity Club, UBC K-Wave, SFU K.STORM, UBC Hong Kong Student Association and Subtle Asian Vancouver Events. We can't wait to have you on board again in 2019!!!
BTS x PUMA Giveaway
We did a giveaway in 2017 to thank our Soju community for your continuous love and support (and also cause we love you). 2018 was no different and this time around we decided to run a Halloween contest. To make this giveaway truly special, we were thinking long and hard about what prize to go for. We decided to opt for a coveted pair of Puma sneakers from their most recent BTS collab sold out everywhere which we personally delivered to our Soju fam member/winner Dan!
2018 Challenges
Do you follow us on Facebook? Awesome!!! Then you know that we always keep it real and this blog post will be no different. I will not pretend that each Soju Sunday went smoothly and that each one of you had an amazing experience because that was not the case. There are unfortunately many factors we have very little power over but we can always make it right on our end and that's what we were focusing on 100% this year. We continue to look for ways to be better and do better while eliminating or at least minimizing elements we can't control to ensure we give you the best K-Pop club experience.
Good Vibes Are the 🔑
I would like to end this Year in Review post on a positive note. 2018 was full of challenges to tackle but we looked at each one of them as an exciting opportunity to learn, to improve, to grow. And while almost each event comes with some negative feedback (which we always welcome with open arms so keep it coming fam), we receive also lots of positive comments that remind us why we do what we do.
2018 thanks for the lessons! 2019 you will be our big year. If you want to find out what we have in store in the next 365 days, subscribe to our newsletter if you haven't already.
Thank you for keeping us jolly Soju fam. See you in the New Year. 💚