UAU in Chicago 2025: A Smaller, More Personal Dreamcatcher-like Experience

Part of the reason why I've stuck with Dreamcatcher so long is the fact that they're excellent in a concert setting. That shouldn't come as a surprise considering the fact that the group's CEO has long envisioned the group as a touring group, and took the bold decision to go globetrotting on tour from debut year despite still needing to be established in the K-Pop industry. The result is a live show experience from Dreamcatcher members who are veterans of making things feel dynamic, fun, and engaging even with a rehearsed setlist and segments.

After years of attending Dreamcatcher concerts, one thing on my mind was whether subunit UAU would deliver in the same way. After all, we had fewer members, fewer songs, and potentially, less time. I had no doubts that JiU, SuA, and Yoohyeon would be great at engaging the crowd and bringing a Dreamcatcher-like experience to the show. But I was still curious about whether it would still have the same feeling - after all, this was billed not as a concert, but as a "FanCon".

Post-show in Chicago, I can confidently say it wasn't the same feeling. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a lesser experience. In fact, it was very fun and enjoyable for different reasons entirely.

Here's how my UAU show day experience went:

Dreamcatcher hadn't been back to Chicago during the summer since 2022, and back then it was brutally hot and humid. It was no different (and perhaps worse) in 2025 - temps reached 93 degrees Farenheit/32 degrees Celsius, with a heat index of 100 F/37 C, which meant everyone was basically roasting outside. The difference was that VVIP ticket holders like myself didn't have to worry too much about lining up early, given the logistics behind promoter Studio PAV's organization, which allowed fans to line up by pre-assigned queue number. Still, it wasn't pleasant to bake in the afternoon sun, but I'd organized a get-together of fans earlier in the day, so I had a few old and new friends to chat up.

VVIP purchasing was worth it for the show. Being able to leave after check-in, find a place to cool off, and then come back for the pre-show fan engagement was great. Once inside, we were lined up by pre-assigned queue number for 3:1 snapshot photos and group photos, both of which went efficiently with clear instructions.

As an aside, I was a bit apprehensive upon learning StudioPAV would be returning to help run another Dreamcatcher tour. I have a decade-plus worth of experience working on the back end of events, including live concert events, so in 2019, Dreamcatcher's first US appearance run by StudioPAV, I had a lot of criticisms. These ranged from lack of organization, understanding of info, inconsistent volunteer training, and more - things you can't help noticing if you've done work in this area.

Suffice it to say, I was a bit skeptical, but StudioPAV appears to have improved things significantly from a show day logistics standpoint since six years ago. Volunteers and staff were easily identifiable, information was readily available, and how things like the 3:1 photo would work were crystal clear, so props to them for shifting my opinion of them.

Despite 3:1 and the group photo going by quickly, having the time to say a few words to welcome UAU back to Chicago before deciding on what to do for pics was nice. Photos having spontaneous things, like JiU deciding she'd put both her hands on my head to form cat ears, are memories that fans don't soon forget, and there are lots of these online from both 3:1 and 1:1 individual photos. My time in events has meant that I've long stopped being starstruck by celebrity, but that didn't make the experience any less fun to have.

Subunits in K-Pop tend to draw less people overall than the main group, and both DCC and StudioPAV seemed to recognize this by booking smaller venues for what was essentially less than half of Dreamcatcher. While I'd heard some concerns from fans that sales seemed a bit sluggish overall, this didn't seem to be the case in Chicago. The floor was completely filled in the 1,400 standing capacity Vic Theatre, with very few empty spaces except for maybe in the very rear. I'd say they sold decently well here (perhaps close to or at 1,000), especially when you consider that it looked like at least a third of the audience had purchased VVIP or VIP benefits of some type. Videos and pictures that have surfaced about the experience from shows earlier in the tour will hopefully drive more sales.

Those additional sales, I think, may be driven by the fact that reports out of the shows, including mine, will display that this was a different experience as a FanCon. With only a single album, some solos from Dreamcatcher's 2022 "Apocalypse: Save Us", and a couple covers to their name, it was known and expected that UAU would be performing less songs overall than a main Dreamcatcher group concert. But what replaced it was a smaller-scale and more personal experience for fans attending. I'd liken it to having a low-key get-together with a few close friends on a Friday night as opposed to a big and bombastic party with lots of people.

This tone was set early on during the first ment, highlighting information about JiU. Long-time fans are probably plenty familiar with JiU's penchant for good food, extroverted leadership ability, and more. Yet having the personal layer of (re)introducing herself to the audience is a way to highlight the "new sides of themselves/being comfortable with one's own self" mood that subunit UAU has brought to their first release.

And there was a distinct effort to involve the audience - SuA grabbed a camera at one point and decided to challenge JiU's profile listing that she had a "specialty" of reading InSomnia's minds. She correctly guessed favorite Dreamcatcher member for at least two fans that SuA sought out at random - so maybe there's something to that talent, after all. SuA herself also had a fun game where she assigned a syllable of a UAU member's name to each part of the crowd, and tested everyone's ability to respond to her pointing at them to say it. These seemed like simple things, but broke up the normal expectations people had for K-Pop ments.

Yet I think the more personal fan-interaction element of this show was made most apparent by the "games with InSomnia" segment. Everyone attending had been given a raffle ticket prior to showtime, and UAU members each chose one ticket out of a bowl at random. The ticket holder would have the lucky distinction of teaming up with the UAU member who chose them to play a game on stage.

These games have varied from show to show, and Chicago got to have "Bean Bag Dart Game", a modified version of Cornhole, where bean bags are thrown to score on a target board. The group spent 25 minutes playing this game with these lucky fans, but everyone was entertained by everyone's antics, including SuA making game show noises or laughing when a bean bag wouldn't get anywhere, Yoohyeon arguing whether or not one of the bean bags her team threw actually scored points, and JiU, inexplicably, getting a bullseye 50-point score while throwing one backwards over her head.

Because Dreamcatcher UAU is so good at fan engagement and live show work, and because this was no doubt an awesome experience for the fans chosen, this was the best part of the show for me by far. We learned later via Reddit from his friend that Yoohyeon's partner is a recent Dreamcatcher fan who got his dream scenario teaming up/interacting with her, and that's just one example of how this became unforgettable for everyone in attendance. The trust needed to place in fans to be respectful despite the unpredictable nature of someone at random being on stage with an artist is immense, and I hope that subsequent stops continue the trend of good behavior.

That's not to say the performances we did see weren't entertaining. All the solos were great to see live and in full (and it was great to see backup dancers for this tour, including Performance Director Hwang Sooyeon and Choreographer Kim Keeyeoun). Every Playlist album song was performed to perfection - "Sacrifice" and "Good Luck" in particular were excellent - and having both a new cover in BoA's "Better" (most recently performed by UAU at Weverse Con 2025) and an old favorite in "Taki Taki" (with a little extended choreography) were nice bonuses.

The end of the show brought with it the post-show benefits, and after seeing video of the prior shows about how sendoff would work, I decided to stick around for it. This was worth it to have done and purchased - it was essentially a Hi-Touch with the roles reversed and at 20% speed, and each UAU member made sure to see everyone in the line and accommodate pictures, video, and interaction (within reason of course). Again, this added to the more personal, close-up mood of the show as a whole, and also doubled as a re-affirmation of UAU's recognition of the fans that decided to show up to see the show. For anyone on the fence for at least VIP-level tier to include this benefit, I hope you consider purchasing.

The last ment had wishes and hopes from all three UAU members that fans would continue to come out to see them, perhaps a self-awareness that this was not a whole group Dreamcatcher show and that the change in musical style has been a factor in attendance, through no fault of anyone's. Yet what UAU did to make this a memorable show was a good direction overall - know that it's a smaller audience, make it more personal, and make it fun and entertaining for fans to participate in. If Chicago is any indiction, it won't be the last time we see UAU (and perhaps, one day, Dreamcatcher as a whole) in the Midwest USA.