Dreamcatcher's Summer Plans Change As May Ends

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The lulls between Dreamcatcher albums have been, for the most part, consistent, and fans have never really felt starved for content - a pretty impressive feat for a small company-represented K-Pop group over 7 years. Even between comebacks, Dreamcatcher has managed to stay visible with concerts, travel obligations, and officially generated content.

Dreamcatcher's summer in 2024 seemed to be shaping up to be no different, and with hints as recently as JiU's birthday fancafe appearance that we might see new music in July it was likely to be a busy one.

That said, in the somewhat volatile world of K-Pop, plans can change and shift, and even Dreamcatcher isn't immune to such happenings. Yet as always, the group continues onward. Let's see what the group has been up to this past week as they head into the year's halfway point.

I was anticipating an edit cut of JiU's birthday since that's been the case for all of Dreamcatcher's birthday livestreams throughout this year, and the company didn't disappoint with this one. This one seemed longer than normal, but that's not unusual considering the fact that this was a nice and cozy livestream of JiU showing off her own island and visiting others' in Animal Crossing.

I've never seen JiU as much of a gamer outside of brief mobile stuff, which makes her recent appearance to learn an NBA 2k game with SuA even funnier. So to see her get so enamored with a game to the point of bringing her Nintendo Switch to another content filming was pretty enjoyable. I'm a long-time gamer and have always believed in games being for everyone, so to see JiU embrace a cozy game like this almost seems like it was made for her. Of course, all the shenanigans with guest visitor Dami trying to steal things from the island and generally cause chaos were a nice bonus, and made this edit even more entertaining.

Handong managed to pop back on after taking a break a couple weeks ago to do her weekly radio show with Spoon Taiwan, and while she was pretty coy with the details, there were a couple of hints she dropped, such as having not shown any recent pictures of herself or that we need to only wait "just a little bit longer". The denial of changing up her hair, a sure sign that a comeback is imminent, was pretty blatant, and I know I'm anticipating June and its potential pre-comeback hype even on just that alone.

Other than that we heard about why she was absent (a work-scheduled thing, which was itself interesting), how different friends plan and behave on trips, and a funny reference to one of Handong's painful early moments in Dreamcatcher's career when Yoohyeon persuaded the group to go on a spinning ride at an amusement park she was familiar with. I've got it linked above and, well, given how the ride seemed to go I'm not surprised Handong has tried to forget it.

This past week's plan alterations seemed to kick off with an extension of the JiU an d Yoohyeon video call event, originally slated for early June but now set for the middle of the month instead. Whether due to scheduling conflicts or the need to drive more sales or both, fans based in the US and Canada now have an extended time period to purchase the indicated JiU and Yoohyeon set items from NEOGEN's US site in order to win some short video call time with the duo.

One of the main changes in Dreamcatcher's summer plans unfortunately involves having to remove gigs, as an organizer from MBC it's Live in Chile posted news of the cancellation of both that show and the one slated for Mexico City in June, which was to feature a slate of artists including Dreamcatcher. The circumstances referred to appeared to surround not being able to hold the Mexico event (no reasoning given). This chained into the Chile event, which despite best efforts to move forward with it individually fell through.

The cancellations are a reminder that it isn't just the company or a booker that contributes to making an event/tour happen, but also local boots on the ground whether from an organizer or a venue standpoint. While this marks the third cancellation of an appearance by Dreamcatcher in the past year (the others being K-Pop We Stand in the US and being part of an anniversary concert for Harley Davidson in Hong Kong), in my opinion we shouldn't attribute this to bad judgment by the group or company. For groups of Dreamcatcher's size fandom-wise, being ultra-selective about opportunities is probably not quite in the cards especially as the group's core pillar is to be a touring/traveling group with revenue coming from those appearances. Additionally, with MBC involved, there seemed to be an additional layer of security as they're a relatively known quantity in South Korea. In the end, it is what it is, and we can hope Dreamcatcher fans in the Latin America region will get to see the group live again one day. There's a cryptic teaser that a Redditor found pointing to something that might be for Dreamcatcher, so we'll have to keep an eye out on behalf of Latin American Dreamcatcher fans.

Yet as they say, when one door closes, another sometimes opens, and it seems in late summer in September, Dreamcatcher will get to check off another country on their list of travels. The group was announced as attending the K-Pop Istanbul Festival in Türkiye, at an outdoor venue in Istanbul's Life Park. Additionally, looking at the schedule at the above picture's source, it appears that Dreamcatcher is not only appearing but is also the headliner for the event, with an opener act TBA going on before them. Assuming this is true, that's a nice little billing touch and recognition, at least by folks in Türkiye, that Dreamcatcher is a headline-worthy act. Tickets go on sale June 3rd at 11:00am EEST on the biletix website.

I'm pretty happy for this for a variety of reasons. The first is, of course, the local fans in Türkiye getting a chance to see Dreamcatcher without traveling too far. They're also performing in a festival environment, a place where I think the group is well-suited to perform (and which I think the group should consider leaning into if they can get organizers to book them). Last but not least, it's nice to see the group continue to try their very best to head to places where they haven't been before. Between this and the recently announced Encore Concert for Luck Inside 7 Doors in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Dreamcatcher continues to be one of the most-traveled groups in recent memory in the K-Pop industry. And even as plans shift around a potential comeback in July, I'll be here reporting on the group weekly was always - so for all that, and more, I'll see you here next Sunday!

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