Dreamcatcher Surprises Fans With Early Tour In 2023, Revealing First Major Part Of Their Schedule
K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall
Though the K-Pop septet needs little reason to want to connect with fans on the live stage again, Dreamcatcher’s tour theme (and content releases) show why they have affection for them.
Part of the reason I’m into K-Pop as a whole are for the delightful surprises that you get when following an active group. With the cadence of album releases at least one to two times a year, along with the bevy of other appearances, promotions, and other activities that go along with those, not to mention all the “extras” (like merchandise or shows, etc.) there’s never a dull moment. And because Dreamcatcher hasn’t always automatically been a lock to be invited to places due to their more modest fandom and company size, when things do happen they are wonderful, welcome surprises.
That said, tours (pandemic years aside) have been a staple of Dreamcatcher’s schedules since debut year. Fans who’ve been into the group a while know that at some point or another Dreamcatcher is going to hit the road to a region, and multiple regions are usually on their plate of activities during the year. True to their rock-influenced roots, touring and live concerts have remained a core part of the Dreamcatcher identity these past six years.
But even here, Dreamcatcher can still surprise fans, and that’s exactly what happened this past week. We’ll get to that near the end of the article, but in the meantime, let’s look at what else the group has been up to this past week!
Dreamcatcher’s fan song “REASON” is certainly doing the numbers since its release. The usual statistical reports from nat1withadv and SpideyCyclist on the Dreamcatcher subeddit shows that the song’s 26 million views are a record pace based on prior data for videos. A harder, rock-based sound, the first musical release of the year for Dreamcatcher, and the first fan song since 2019 are factors, along with a likely paid ad campaign that has certainly helped matters. The song did so well that it placed 6th on MNet’s M! Countdown chart for the week of the 9th — 15th, and that only on two days worth of YouTube tracking data plus other factors that play into music show rankings. Not too shabby for a fan song, I’d say.
A small debate has emerged in the Dreamcatcher community about whether or not the ad views are “real” views and are artificially inflating the success of the song. That’s understandable, especially as it has begun to outpace title tracks and releases, but my philosophy has always been that ad views are views, given Google/YouTube’s criteria for counting an ad view (TL;DR, the viewer has to engage, watch, or clickthru on the ad, rather than skip it) and that most if not all companies buy ad views for this purpose. I’m also personally seeing what happened with “BOCA”, in that there are ton of different videos mentioning or looking at it, most notably Reaction content. And of course, there’s what we will get to at the end of this article plus the “momentum” from seeing those numbers go up resulting in people streaming the song more. All of these factors seem to contribute to “REASON” seeing its numbers go up, and really, the important thing is that we have new Dreamcatcher music so early in the year and that people are definitely interested in listening to it and watching the MV, no matter how they get there. It’s overall a thing to be celebrated, in my opinion.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0_S8lcgGxc[/embed][embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpMD_qKTHLY[/embed][embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eQ0m3PRcHc[/embed]
Another cause for joy this past week was a triple helping of Dreamcatcher’s Notes and VLOGs, beginning the content drop for this past November’s Europe tour. There were plenty of fun moments from these bits of content, such as Yoohyeon continuing the saga of losing her phone, Handong eating an ice cream cake meant for multiple people like a hamburger while walking down the street, SuA flexing every After Effects and Premiere motion graphic known, and Gahyeon dropping in an impromptu VLOG within Note content. Europe has been common stomping grounds for Dreamcatcher on tour these past few years, and it was nice to see them come back and have just as good of a time if not better than all the previous times they’ve come around.
[embed]https://weverse.io/dreamcatcher/live/1-112276548[/embed]
Yoohyeon also dropped by this week on Weverse to do a bit of a voice-only live stream, where she had a lot of fun with Dami (who was in the live chat commenting), talked a bit about where she’d want to go on tour next (Asia fans, start asking now, she exclaimed), and more. I feel like of all of Dreamcatcher, we can always rely on Yoohyeon to pop in regularly these days on the Weverse platform even with the group busy with their plans for the year and beyond. It’s a nice and reliable interaction that fans can count on.
[embed]https://twitter.com/fromm_official/status/1616314708218335232[/embed]
Speaking of interaction, however, the news dropped and then was swiftly executed on that Dreamcatcher was joining Fromm, a platform developed by the folks behind Wonderwall (who Dreamcatcher have collaborated with in the past). If you’re not familiar with these types of apps, they are parasocially-driven paid subscription services (this article from Mashable helps, especially the section on Bubble which Fromm appears to be very similar to). A monthly subscription to one or more members gets you into a seemingly 1 on 1 chat with your chosen member or members, though the posts from those members are essentially visible to everyone anyway and thus more like a group chat than a 1 to 1 interaction. You can, of course send back messages if you want in the hopes that they’re seen and potentially replied to. It’s an interesting model, and not for me, but for those that want to partake, they now have the option to do so. Because of how specific this type of interaction is, I don’t think Dreamcatcher’s engagement on the free SNS platforms (Instagram, Weverse, etc.) will decrease — it’s just another interesting way for Dreamcatcher to make a connection with fans and also to pocket a little more revenue, so be sure to take advantage of it via downloading the Fromm app on mobile if you want!
[embed]https://twitter.com/hf_dreamcatcher/status/1615393548203065345[/embed]
That being said, the thing we do know that is a guaranteed interaction between Dreamcatcher and their fans is soon to come in late February to late March, as Dreamcatcher Company and MyMusicTaste announced the group’s first tour of 2023. Dreamcatcher will return to the US, with nine dates and a couple new stops along the way, including Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, D.C., and more. Venues also seem to have been upgraded at prior stops meaning more Dreamcatcher fans will have the opportunity to see the group at their best in a live concert environment. And with new music from Apocalypse: Follow Us and “REASON”, US fans are pretty much confirmed to see something they haven’t seen before. Tickets went on sale two days after the announcement, and even though the turnaround time for first available sales were short, unconfirmed reports showed half of the tickets already gone on the first day. That’s a great start for the tour, and can only get better as the shows get closer.
While I’m surprised at this decision (it deviates from the pattern of having a comeback prior to touring and it also goes back to a region before completing a circuit of others that did not have Dreamcatcher stops, like Southeast Asia), it’s also an understandable one. Dreamcatcher seemed to be at their happiest and most content when on the road to see their fans, and a return to tour sooner rather than later feeds into that. Additionally, from a business perspective, having a nice bank of revenue to fall back on for future prospects in 2023 is a solid one, and if last year’s North American tour was any indication, the group and the company made plenty. You can expect that I’ll be sure to put forth a report and summary from one of these stops as I did last year, so definitely look forward to that, and to Dreamcatcher hitting the road once again in 2023. Dreamcatcher’s largest Discord fan community has some sub-forums set up for those of you who want to connect with others on tour stops, so be sure to stop by and talk with your fellow fans!
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEQ4ZtcFxEY[/embed]
We know that Dreamcatcher is going to be traveling very soon, and certainly there will be a ton of prep to do beforehand for that to happen. Lunar New Year is upon us, but when that’s all over and done with Dreamcatcher is going to be getting right back to work. As always, you can count on me to catch you up on the latest Dreamcatcher news, so be sure to clap, subscribe and signal boost the article if you like what you are reading! Be sure to check back next week at this time for more Dreamcatcher content, as always.
