LOONA’s Agency Blockberry Creative Reportedly Facing Financial Difficulties And Have Been Unable To Pay Staff For Months

[My Everything]

It has been recently reported by Korean media that Blockberry Creative, which houses LOONA, is currently facing financial difficulties. According to a representative member of the industry, the company currently has not been able to pay multiple external companies that have worked with them. Reportedly, unpaid fees are estimated to be a million to a hundred million KRW (between $100,000 USD to $1,000,000 USD),

Such external businesses have been unpaid by Blockberry Creative for many months, yet have continued working for the company. This includes hair, makeup and stylists for LOONA. Korean media confirmed that Blockberry Creative even went as far to unilaterally telling them to stop work recently. On the other hand, music production companies have found it hard to work with the company due to their inability to properly manage the company.

It was reported that Blockberry Creative has been facing financial difficulties for a few months. Internal staff has been going unpaid for months. With the company being unable to pay taxes, salaries, external businesses and more, the future of the company and its main artists, LOONA, is unclear.

Fans have been concerned about the muddy financial situation, despite LOONA’s Chuu facing huge success and love for her cute image.

Source

Edited September 28, 2021 by My Everything

[Anii]

I just flopped an exam and came online to escape life and this is the first thing I see....I really really hope things work out in the end.

[echobunny]

they did spend money like crazy pre-debut so i thought they had enough money to burn...guess not

[Ghosty]

bbc fucked up so many things. even something as easy as just livestreaming on that donut app for a few months, which they didn't, now the company took back its 3 million dollar usd investment. lol.

it says a lot about their management when dreamcatcher, a girl group with an even smaller chance to succeed due to their sound and concept and a company with multiple unsuccessful groups is in better hands than loona is. bbc catered too hard to international fans, especially when they have rising korean gp members like chuu and heejin, something dreamcatcher does not even have. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Ghosty

[Kman1]

I though Loona was the pet project of the son of a massive conglomerate, is that not true? Or I guess he just doesn't have access to the extra money needed.

[Thigh-high feminist]

Wow, I really hope they are able to turn things around. Loona is too good and the ladies have worked so hard.

[gam3 bo1]

1 hour ago, Ghosty said:

bbc fucked up so many things. even something as easy as just livestreaming on that donut app for a few months, which they didn't, now the company took back its 3 million dollar usd investment. lol.

it says a lot about their management when dreamcatcher, a girl group with an even smaller chance to succeed due to their sound and concept and a company with multiple unsuccessful groups is in better hands than loona is. bbc catered too hard to international fans, especially when they have rising korean gp members like chuu and heejin, something dreamcatcher does not even have. 

have bbc really catered that much to international fans tho? all i can think of is their kcon appearances and maybe a bit of youtube variety, i was always under the assumption they focused mainly on korea with heejin and chuu's solo gigs (although i kinda think they've done both poorly, not many other members have been pushed and i don't think they do much variety or even things on their youtube channel to begin with)

[Ghosty]

18 minutes ago, gam3 bo1 said:

have bbc really catered that much to international fans tho? all i can think of is their kcon appearances and maybe a bit of youtube variety, i was always under the assumption they focused mainly on korea with heejin and chuu's solo gigs (although i kinda think they've done both poorly, not many other members have been pushed and i don't think they do much variety or even things on their youtube channel to begin with)

they could've obviously done more, but i think bbc had the wrong execution in the assumption that they were catering to the international fans. they obviously shifted musically to appeal to international fans post-butterfly, but they focused on that aspect too much and solely relied on that area to bring in attention from that demographic. if they didn't felt the need to appeal to that demographic, we would've stopped at the girl crush concept after why not. ptt is even more divisive than so what, lol. 

bbc hasn't done much for loona content-wise, in both south korea and internationally, but they catered enough to international fans for korean fans to leave the fandom because they felt neglected and abandoned. 

[pinkpanda_spirit]

Well.. making memes on Twitter isn’t enough to pay your girls’ rent dear orbits

[gam3 bo1]

45 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

they could've obviously done more, but i think bbc had the wrong execution in the assumption that they were catering to the international fans. they obviously shifted musically to appeal to international fans post-butterfly, but they focused on that aspect too much and solely relied on that area to bring in attention from that demographic. if they didn't felt the need to appeal to that demographic, we would've stopped at the girl crush concept after why not. ptt is even more divisive than so what, lol. 

bbc hasn't done much for loona content-wise, in both south korea and internationally, but they catered enough to international fans for korean fans to leave the fandom because they felt neglected and abandoned. 

that's true, i didn't think about the music bit. their international fandom is already pretty well established it would've been good if they focused on a sound that korean gp would likely to be more accepting of so their korean fandom could grow and become more stable and they could've done that last comeback but also maybe instead of why not as loona has been doing pretty alright internationally for a while. i've noticed lots of the idol songs that get big in korea are very upbeat and closer to the cute side of the spectrum rather than badass (thinking stayc - asap or oh my girl - nonstop) so that could've been good for them.

[seokii]

So weird. And yet somehow not weird at all.

Like, it's not weird that they're broke after burning through millions for Loona. The budget they were using at some points did not look sustainable. But doesn't Blockberry have a bunch of weird connections? I still think it's fucking weird that they collaborated with Grimes? They had investments from SM too...

There's something fishy about it. I think the Loona girls are normal idols but there's something fishy about Blockberry

[spopo]

I remember they spent money like crazy pre-debut (and even into debut).  Like it was always a meme among Orbits how sickeningly rich BBC was.  And now this is the second report we've gotten of extreme financial difficulty.  Guess they spent money they didn't have.

[himi]

wait i thought the company is rich seeing how big they always go for their comeback. hope they can turn things around. this is also why it's important to have big fanbase aka big physical sales if you're not that well loved by the GP. and iirc loona sadly don't do well both

[Jtsmith1]

Gong Yoo now playing ddajki with the CEO of BBC as we speak. 

 

Seriously jokes aside, I do hope for the girls and the staff's sake this gets resolved somehow. They all deserve better. 

[Iljin Oppa]

They burned way too much money pre-debut.

Anyways, how the fuck did they pay for this:
 

 

[sawarin]

i knew the company would start burning their budget for the group the moment they tried to make every girl not only a girl of the month, but a different country as well. they probably realized by the time the first unit was done, because the differences between the other members were so obvious (heejin was shooting in paris vs kim lip shooting in a basement in south korea) 

also, i’m pretty sure they lost the rich investors halfway through the predebut promotions as well. from what i remember it was a military company that produced weapons? or something like that. 

it doesn’t help that most of their fandom consists of trolls of other groups who think twitter likes = exposure. 

[Your Biggest Fan]

Considering all the news we've been getting about BBC's financial trouble, I'm not surprised by this at all. They don't make music that appeals to Loona's Korean or International bases, they spend ridiculous amounts of money they don't have on MVs and they renege on deals they make with investors so that they get sued to high heaven.

Yeah, the group could continue on like this but not without consequences that would be damaging to most of the girls.

[Catallena]

oh wow

Jaden had the last laugh

 

[BaebyTae]

Again???? Did they have a lost of investment in the last year?? Where did that money go, bc is not like the group is having comebacks every 2 months and a expensive MV doesn't burn through that kind of money that fast. So where's the money going

[Quinn the Brain]

Lee Sooman, please buy their contracts and make them your group.

BBC seems to lack commercial knowledge.

[RIPHaldir]

Not very suprising tbh

[Josaline]

HYBE, you know what to do. 

[oddicircles]

5 hours ago, Iljin Oppa said:

They burned way too much money pre-debut.

Anyways, how the fuck did they pay for this:
 

 

They signed under a japanese company which probably funded this and their japanese debut 

[My Everything]

9 minutes ago, Josaline said:

HYBE, you know what to do. 

Hybe ain’t gonna save an already sinking ship 

[Revanche]

They spent too much at pre-debut. But IMO the pre-debut stuff was the best stuff. I haven’t liked much of their music since they debuted. They probably should have sent some of their girls to Girls Planet 999 just like Cherry Bullet. At least some of the girls would be in a group and making music for awhile. Then they could take the remaining girls and split them into their units and promote smaller comebacks. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Revanche