PLEDIS criticized for deliberately delaying S.COUPS' event announcement

SEVENTEEN's team leader, S.COUPS, suffered a knee injury in August, which was later diagnosed as damage to the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, causing him to pause his activities and undergo surgery.

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Since it's only been two months since the surgery, the management agency Pledis Entertainment announced on the 20th that S.COUPS will not be participating in the comeback activities on the 22nd of this month, unexpectedly causing dissatisfaction among many fans.

Pledis Entertainment stated that although S.COUPS himself has a strong will to participate in the schedule, they still hope that the artist prioritizes his health recovery, so they've decided not to include him in the new album's schedule. They hope that fans can understand.

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However, some fans are unhappy with Pledis's 'slow' policy. They even expressed their dissatisfaction on forums, believing that they could have been forewarned about a member's absence due to illness. Instead, it was announced that S.COUPS would not participate in activities after the album signing event started. Fans suspect that the company deliberately delayed the information and allowed fans to consume and buy albums in advance.

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Fans on the forum posted Pledis' announcement regarding member S.COUPS not participating in the comeback schedule, and everything seemed to be no different from a normal announcement. However, the company did not indicate afterwards whether the member would participate in the autograph session. They only removed S.COUPS’ name from the final member autograph session group list, which was wholly unacceptable for fans.

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Fans expressed their dissatisfaction, stating that the company was well aware of whether the member could continue with the comeback activities before the autograph session was held. In other words, the company was already aware of the member's health status and recovery situation. However, they chose to notify just two days before the comeback, or even after the autograph session tickets were sold out, leading many fans to believe that the company deliberately delayed the announcement date for the sake of sales.

The fan argued that since each purchase for a sign event is a considerable amount of money, even spending much savings to get a signature, even if you're not a die-hard fan, you would want to see your favorite member. Thus, the company seems to have concealed information from fans supposedly for sales, intentionally delaying the announcement, causing many fans to be furious. "Is it that hard to make a proper announcement?", "The desire to make money is too much, especially after being acquired by HYBE it's getting worse", "It's really too much", "Sign events are not just one or two, it really looks like scamming fans", "Of course, they should inform us beforehand. Nobody would say it only after a member leaves, it really feels like a scam", causing much dissatisfaction.