ohhhhh boy. where to begin
i went to miku expo 2024 in dc! it was pretty fun. i got to meet my partner and good friends for it, which was a pretty big deal considering half of us weren't close to dc at all. though i met them before the day of the concert and walked a pretty painful way around the area, on the day of the concert we went to the natural history museum beforehand and i took a bunch of miku nui pictures with my friends. these are only some of the better ones
we stopped to eat (and ate one of the best mac and cheese i've ever had in my life) and then went straight to the concert. i got luka and len bracelet freebies made by a few people. though i gave the len one to my partner, i kept the luka one and it's sitting on my desk as i write this. i just had fun basking in the environment, i never had a place to find many vocal synth fans in person besides introducing my friends from middle school that i eventually lost touch with, so it was an insane experience to see all these people liking the same thing i did not too far from where i live
the setlist was absolutely amazing, i loved all the previous miku expo callbacks with the alternating setlists and i nearly cried during tell your world. i was able to get a bunch of confetti which i shared with my mother (who was sitting in the back and also enjoyed the show) and got to experience something this important and fun with the people closest to me, even when my feet hurt and couldn't see miku as well as i wanted, it was an irreplacable experience and felt like a core memory i never had
as fun as the concert was, i do want to bring up the godawful management. the merch shortage was disheartening and many people in the audience were left without penlights (including me and my friends, though a nice lady temporarily lended me her penlight during on the rocks) and i didn't get much merch at all despite saving a lot of money for it. pretty much anyone who wasn't vip was left in the dust and most of the audience weren't vip, so it really sucked
regardless, i'm happy to have seen miku at all. i did really have a lot of fun and i'm excited for the next time i get to see her. maybe one day i'll attend a magical mirai, that would be fun but i'd probably cry extremely hard lol. i'm starting to be an adult and slowly enter society and i feel like the concert was the closing to my childhood as i move forward to the next stage in my life. even if i couldn't go to a concert in 2018 when i was 11 because i assumed we didn't have the money, or in 2020 when i was 13 because covid wasn't taken seriously, i'm happy to be here and still loving miku like i have since i was 10. i think they'd be happy if they saw the crowd and love from the set and knew that they would be there
sorry for not having much to write, i don't think i can fully put the experience into words. i just had fun and that's all that matters
