The world’s largest K-pop music festival, KCON, will be held in downtown Los Angeles this weekend.
Organizers expect 160,000 people from around the world to descend on Southern California for the three-day festival, which will feature all things Korean culture, including K-beauty, K-food and K-pop music artists.
“I came to see ENHYPEN and NMIXX,” Olivia Chang said.
“We came to see ENHYPEN and P1Harmony,” her friend Kira Ishida added with a laugh, explaining how excited they were to meet members of their favorite boy bands. The two girls had come over from San Francisco with their parents.
The cute boys that make up most K-pop bands are such a big hit that screams filled the room during the meet-and-greet introductions on Friday afternoon.
The expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center also had free items and merchandise available for purchase, and while some fans had expressed concern that the number of vendors had dwindled in recent years, organizers said the expansion to a three-day festival had expanded what to see.
Outside the convention center, artists and DJs will host dance parties throughout the day at Gilbert Lindsay Plaza.
Each day will conclude with a performance at Crypto.com Arena.
For K-pop fans who don’t live in big cities, KCON is an opportunity to connect with others who share the same interests.
“We came all the way from Montana,” said Ivan Wells, who came to L.A. with his mother and a friend. “We’ve been going to KCON for a long time. This is our third time here.”
“Not a lot of people from Arkansas know about K-pop,” said Phoebe Hintz, who came with her parents and two sisters. “Our town is really small, so we don’t have these concerts.”
Organizers say it’s a community unlike any other music genre.
“This is a real sense of participation and engagement that’s hard to find in pop music these days,” said Joen Cho, vice president of marketing at CJ ENM America, which is organizing the event.
“They are basically Korean pop artists who have been trained for years to perform at the level we see today. So these young people can have four or five years of training to improve before they debut. This system is exactly what makes K-pop unique,” Choi explained.
This year, celebrities from popular Korean dramas will be hosting several events.
Ticket prices range from $130 for a one-day pass to nearly $1,000 for a three-day pass.