KOREA FOUNDATION

When a worldwide K-pop sensation recently held a concert tour of several major international cities, mass media reported scenes of thousands of fans camped outside venues overnight, singing out the Korean lyrics of their favorite songs. K-pop established itself as a new genre of music quite some time ago, and festivities are now staged in many places around the world every year to highlight the genre and to publicize Korean culture as a whole. This summer, the Korean wave will hit the United States once again.

   KCON, the largest-scale ever Hallyu festival in the world, will be held in New York this July, and in Los Angeles this August. Since the inaugural convention in California in 2012, KCON has drawn approximately 800,000 fans from North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America, and Oceania. KCON’s flagship event is a K-pop music festival, but it also features other up-to-date cultural trends of Korea, including beauty, fashion, broadcasting, and lifestyle. In short, KCON is an assortment of everything that promotes Hallyu culture. The July KCON event is drawing special excitement from Hallyu fans as it’s being staged for the first time in New York’s Madison Square Garden, a venue renowned for live concerts and professional sports.

   KCON 2019 will be held in four cities around the world, providing programs specially customized for each venue and the surrounding neighborhood. Madison Square Garden, one of the most famous arena in the world, can host more than 20,000 people at a time—there, KCON will bring together more than 10 K-pop artists and groups for a joint concert. Meanwhile, at the nearby Javits Center, Korean and American influencers will take to the stage to strengthen the far-reaching impact of Korean pop culture on online platforms. The Los Angeles event in August will run for four days, the longest KCON event yet, to accommodate as many fans as possible.

   Through the New York events, the aggregate number of KCON participants is expected to break the 1 million mark, and all in less than eight years since the convention’s inception. Such a record-setting achievement is possible precisely because the event goes far beyond the headlining large-scale K-pop concerts to provide a comprehensive package of Korean culture. In and around the KCON venues in New York, on-site experiences will be offered to give fans fun and easy access to a range of Korean cultural content and products.

   “The growth and development of KCON was propelled by the idea of utilizing global events to upgrade the national brand and disseminate Korean culture throughout the world,” said one KCON organizer. He said that every member of the KCON team was working hard to find multiple ways of enabling more world nations to enjoy Korean culture. It’s rewarding to see Korean cultural content contribute to raising the nation’s competitive power through its own marketability and its potential to provide positive effects to other areas of business.

Korean_Culture Converntion KCON USA