K-pop has become a K-pop-up. In the Design District, the futuristic assortment of shiny sheds by North Greenwich bus station, an Enhypen pop-up retail store has turned a few unused metres of floor space into a temporary embassy for the South Korean band and the whole K-pop movement — a place where music and merch become something you can queue for, photograph, and carry home in a tote bag.

It isn’t anything like the ordinary souvenir stands you get for a show at the O2. It’s more an illustration of a wider phenomenon in which fans cross borders, swap stories, and immerse themselves in a culture they mostly follow online — K-pop, the highly produced, performance-driven style of popular music from South Korea that blends catchy melodies with choreography, striking visuals and multimedia storytelling.

Enhypen – comprised of seven members: Jungwon, Heeseung, Jay, Jake, Sunghoon, Sunoo, and Ni-ki – are the latest band to emerge from the music workshops of the TV survival show I-Land (think The X Factor on steroids) and are playing at the O2 on Friday. Fans from across Europe have been quick to make a pilgrimage.

From Vienna, Sarah, 23, explains why she flew in just for a pop-up and a concert: “We love them very much. The music is very mixed with feelings. You have sad songs, you have happy songs, you have cool songs, and they all look good.” She laughs, noting she discovered Enhypen six months ago through her younger sister, who is 14 and has been flowing them “since their debut, like since 2020”. That must seem like a long time ago.

The Enhypen pop-up store perhaps trades on that emotional connection: it is both a marketplace and a place to create memories, with fans posing in front of pictures of their pop idols. 

What else happens inside? Fans talk about buying photocard holders, key chains and shirts as if they’re passports into a shared world. 

Another duo hold up a “little ticket for the shop, just like merch”, half-joking that a fan with one of the stars’ faces on is “so we don’t die in there”, inside the O2. Then, suddenly, they go serious and talk about doing their bit to “support them”. The products are tactile, collectible, perhaps tradeable.

“It’s really cool that they do something like that for the fans to connect as a community with other fans,” Tamsin, 23, from Ilkeston, near Nottingham, says, before offering a constructive criticism about the pop-up: “I personally would like for it to be two storeys.” 

For Tamsin, visiting Greenwich also feels special —  it’s “quite posh,” as she puts it – although she’s been to the O2 before.

How did Enhypen win their legion of fans? “It’s not just music with them. It’s the whole package, a story, backstory.  The effort with every comeback,” says Christina. 

“You can also see their personalities and then, you know, the hard work they put in behind the scenes. It motivates me to keep working hard on myself.”

The pop-up is also proof of how European K-pop culture now has its own momentum. Fans talk casually about distances: “Originally I’m from the Slovak Republic, right now I live in Germany,” says one.

And the store does what stores do: it sends people back into the city with things they didn’t know they needed the day before. A teenager and her sister compare lanyards, a twentysomething folds a shirt into a suitcase, a visitor from the Continent texts pictures home. On Friday night the arena will have been taken over by Enhypen fans. The day after, they will be gone, although the pop-up will remain for a few more weeks.

Some experiences will live longer in the memory. Not least for the fan from Vienna who’s tried something just a little bit different, egged on by her British friend. 

“She’s just had her first sausage roll,” she laughs. “From Greggs”. She won’t forget that in a hurry.

Enhypen play the O2 Arena on Friday August 22. Some tickets are still available, starting at £84. The Enhypen pop-up store is at 6 Dormer Yard, SE10 0EB and is open from noon to 7pm until September 28 (closed on Mondays).

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