Recently, the popular new girl group IVE has been at the forefront of public opinion due to the cancellation of Kyungpook University anniversary performance. The school and the company issued statements back and forth, causing things to turn around again and again, but the final truth was unexpected.
First of all, on the 4th of this month, the General Student Union of Kyungpook University in South Korea suddenly issued an announcement stating that the IVE performance originally scheduled for October 6th would be cancelled. The student union stated that it received notice from Starship Ent., IVE's agency, that IVE members were unable to participate in the performance on time due to visa issues.
Later, Starship Ent. issued an official statement, saying that it had indeed received an invitation to perform from Kyungpook University, but the two parties did not conduct specific negotiations or sign a contract afterwards. The company also stated that after Kyungpook National University announced its cast, the company requested to remove IVE's name, but received no response.
Starship Ent.’s announcement seems to place all the blame on Kyungpook National University. So not long after, the Kyungpook National University Student Union issued a long statement again, refuting the brokerage company's statement.
The Central Emergency Response Committee of the Student Union said that the agency that negotiated the performance was the school festival agency and Starship Agency. The school agency completed the verbal agreement for "IVE performance" through Starship Agency, and received a verbal reply from the other party when they met directly with Starship Ent. executives in Seoul. Therefore, the school agency believed that a sufficient agreement had been reached regarding IVE's performance, and paid the full performance fee of IVE to Starship Agency.
In summary, the Student Union believes that Starship Ent.’s claim that “it only received an invitation to appear, and no specific negotiations or contract signing was carried out afterwards” is not true. The school can provide evidence such as the content of the call and the payment of performance fees.
Kyungpook National University’s new announcement caused Starship Ent. to quickly fall into the negative public opinion of “taking money to do nothing”, which even affected the artists themselves. In the face of fierce public opinion, Starship Entertainment also quickly stated its position, clarifying that there is no so-called Starship Agency, and the performance activities of the company's artists are generally carried out through individual agencies. In addition, the company did not meet or reach a verbal agreement with the school agency.
It is reported that Starship Ent. received IVE invitations to appear in Kyungpook National University and Keimyung University's anniversary through an agency in early September. However, the group had other schedules and was unable to appear, so the company did not respond to the two schools' appearances. Since then, the company has not discussed the specific details of the performance contract with the two schools, nor has it received any performance fees. The company also never marked the appearance of the two schools' anniversary celebrations in the official schedule.
Both sides insisted on their own opinions, and netizens once again fell into chaos. It was not until later on the 5th that The Merson, the agency that represented Starship Ent. in negotiating with the Kyungpook University Anniversary Agency, came forward to apologize and explain, and the truth was finally revealed.
The Merson said that it was the fact that he had not given a clear answer to the school anniversary agency and "reserved the possibility of appearing" that led to the current result. The performance fees received by The Merson were not transferred to Starship Ent., but were returned to the anniversary agency. "We would like to apologize to Kyungpook National University students, people related to the celebration, and the local (campus celebration) agency that worked hard in the middle. Most importantly, we would like to express our sincere apologies to Kyungpook National University students, Starship and IVE members who suffered substantial losses due to communication issues between agencies."
Netizens who learned the truth were speechless towards the agency, and many expressed sympathy to the Gyeongsangbuk University Student Association and IVE members who were attacked for no reason.
