Christmas is right around the corner! With just a few more weekends left before the holidays, you might find yourself in a pickle picking out a gift for your Blink bestie or your ARMY relative. Maybe you think it’s easy to pick out a gift for a K-Pop fan, but you’ll learn that it’s hard to find something a K-Pop fan doesn’t already have!
Worry not! We’ve got your back with a gift guide tailored to your typical Kiwi K-pop fan, so all it takes is one trip to town to get the shopping done!
Concert Essentials
You’re probably thinking that all you really need in a concert is a ticket and yourself. But don’t underestimate how fun and intense K-Pop concerts can actually be! Fans fly from all over the world just to be one of the lucky attendees of a concert, and they dress up for it too! We make a whole day out of it, which means we’ll need a lot of concert essentials.
For our concert lovers, here are some gifts worth considering:
K-Pop Lightsticks
A lightstick is the number one item someone needs when attending a K-Pop artist’s concert. Doesn’t matter if you’re a fan, or just a casual attendee. Without one of these bad boys, you’ll feel left out! These aren’t just random items that get given away either! You have to buy these from official stores or resellers, as each artist has a lightstick specifically designed for their fans and concerts in mind. This makes lightsticks more than just a concert accessory but something that can be displayed at home.
You can order them from a couple of online stores based in New Zealand, such as KKANG or K-Pop Stop NZ! Delivery takes only a couple of days, so best place your orders soon!
Powerbanks or Portable Chargers
With K-Pop concerts come long queues that can stretch for miles! These aren’t just lines for merchandise either. The queue for the concert proper can be even longer, especially because many fans line up the night before just to get those barricade spots. Plus, concerts itself drain your phone battery like crazy, with all the photos and videos that you’ll be taking!
Take a look at the Belkin powerbanks as they come in some cute colours! Or the tried and tested Anker chargers. You can get either from your local tech store like JB Hi-Fi or Noel Leeming.
Merch Add-ons
I know, we said we’ll give you a gift guide for things the typical K-pop fan doesn’t have. The thing is, you can never go wrong with official merch, and some supplementary gifts to go along with them!
Photocard Album
There’s a whole collector’s market just for K-Pop photocards! These usually come with the merch, but what makes them special is that most photocards are random. Some are common, others are rare, and only a few are limited edition photocards that can be acquired from attending special events. We take photocards seriously in this house, and what’s a better gift than giving someone a home for their photocards? You won’t go wrong with a photocard album!
You can get these at most department and stationery stores, usually in the Instax section.
CD Player
Us fans have many albums from an array of K-Pop artists. But because of streaming culture, that also means we have a ton of CDs that are collecting dust on our shelves. Let’s give these albums a purpose above being part of a collection, and have their CDs played!
There’s a ton of CD players in the market, and you can find a lot of them at tech and homeware stores or even op shops. Go old school with this portable one and take your fave albums on the go!
2026 Season’s Greetings
Speaking of merchandise, while we’ve covered that fans might have all the merchandise we can think of, something they might not have is a Season’s Greetings merchandise! This is a special line of merchandise released by many groups and artists before the holidays. It’s the perfect holiday gift set, usually packed with calendars, journals, photocards, and something special!
You can order these at KKANG or K-Pop Stop NZ, but be quick as these sell out fast! Shipping may also be delayed as this is merchandise that isn’t stocked in advance and are pre-ordered.
Favourite Idol’s Perfume
This is a very niche gift and requires a lot of research (or perhaps one Google search)! Idols often have a signature perfume or scent that they like to wear, for instance, Jungkook of BTS recently said that his current fragrance is Bleu de Chanel which you can get at your nearest Farmers! So if your favourite K-pop fan wants to smell like their idol (or simply needs to know what their idol smells like), then you can’t go wrong with perfume! We’ve got Farmers, Mecca, and even Chemist Warehouse to find the scents we need.
Idol Skincare
Singing, dancing, and having good looks aren’t the only things idols are known for. They also have the best, most impeccable skin! And who doesn’t want to have nice skin? Many idols endorse a ton of skincare products, and some have even done skincare-focused GRWM videos for their fans!
For instance, you can get V of BTS’s Tirtir Cushion Foundation from Hikoco, or you can get the MISSHA products that Sana from TWICE uses! If there’s a Sephora nearby, how about getting the Laneige Cream Skin milky toner that Jin uses? I use that myself, and it’s definitely my holy grail for smooth and softer skin!
Happy Shopping!
