[Sportschosun, Reporter Baek Ji-eun] A new K-pop festival that will shake the world is about to begin.
On the afternoon of the 27th, the Presidential Committee on Popular Culture Exchange held a press briefing at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, in Jongno District, Seoul, regarding the 2027 Phenomenon promotion plan. Park Jin-young, head of JYP Entertainment and co-chair of the committee, and Choi Hwi-young, committee chair and minister of culture, sports and tourism, attended the event.
Minister Choi introduced the committee, saying, “Since its launch on October 1, the Presidential Committee on Popular Culture Exchange has been considering how K-culture can be shared more deeply and broadly with the world. Many discussions were needed to flesh out Phenomenon, which Park Jin-young had announced as a key project. Phenomenon is a large-scale festival that brings together the capabilities of various K-culture fields.”
The Presidential Committee on Popular Culture Exchange is a presidential body established to help realize one of President Lee Jae-myung’s pledges: making Korea one of the world’s five major cultural powers. Park Jin-young drew attention last October when he was named co-chair of the committee.
Park Jin-young opened by saying, “We have spent the past 10 months preparing with excitement and joy. I am grateful to be able to push ahead with something that seemed unrealistic. There is one reason I started working on the committee. I wanted to ask what we need to do to make K-culture as sustainable as possible. The question I received from the government was, ‘What can we do for the agencies that are working on the front lines?’ In the end, the starting point was that we had to look at this as a fandom industry.”
‘Phenomenon’ is a name that replaces the first part of the word phenomenon with ‘fan,’ giving it the meaning of ‘a phenomenon created by fans.’
There are three core projects in the new fandom industry. The first is the Phenomenon Awards for global artists and their fandoms. From December 2 to 12, 2027, a total of 11 days of major K-culture events will be held at Seoul Arena in Chang-dong, Dobong District, Seoul, and at Hall 2 of KINTEX in Ilsan New Town, Goyang City, Gyeonggi Province. At Seoul Arena, there will be artists’ concerts, awards ceremonies, and exhibitions of nominees by category. One of those events will be a fandom awards ceremony for global fandoms. At KINTEX, a multi-genre music festival, along with K-culture company exhibitions and hands-on programs, will be prepared.
The second is the Phenomenon Festival. It will launch in Los Angeles next May and then be held in major cities around the world. In short, it will be similar to Korea’s version of Coachella. Finally, the plan includes building 20,000-seat performance venues in major cities worldwide and incorporating exhibitions by government offices and various companies. Through this, the committee expects to attract a total of 520,000 visitors, including about 200,000 foreign visitors, and generate an economic effect worth more than 1 trillion won.
To make this happen, the four companies leading K-pop’s global expansion — SM, JYP, HYBE and YG — have even established a joint venture.
Park Jin-young explained, “Companies and the government are joining forces to achieve a public-interest goal. We will make sure both public value and profit can be secured. The four K-pop companies have come together with the goal of contributing to Korea’s cultural industry, drawing global attention and people, and making good use of that. We also need a lot of help from our artists. Events that hurt agencies or artists cannot last long. Our goal is to turn this into something that strengthens artists and becomes an event they want to take part in, like Coachella or Lollapalooza, as quickly as possible. We are also holding events overseas to promote K-culture. We chose Los Angeles as the first venue because it is the capital of global entertainment.”
He added, “Even if the focus is on the four major agencies, smaller agencies will not be excluded. We did not take on this work without that level of responsibility. In the case of the fandom awards, the committee will collect data accurately at the institutional level. Even if measuring and awarding goes against the purity of art, it should be done if the positive effects are greater. The same applies to measuring fandom passion and giving awards. I believe minimizing side effects is also a matter for the fans.”
Addressing conspiracy theories that K-pop was planned by the government and then expanded globally with state support, Park Jin-young stressed, “The theory that K-pop was planned by the government is not true. The best response to something untrue is to show the facts. There are many cases where the government should not be doing private-sector work. This time, it started from the opposite direction, with the government asking those of us on the front lines for methods. The companies came up with the planning and ideas. That is a major difference.”
Park Jin-young especially laughed as he said, “Please help us.” He said, “Even among existing award shows, there are many things to consider, such as protecting singers while inviting overseas artists, differences in the interests of the four companies and artists’ schedules, and the public-private aspect. There is so much to think about. It is really hard. Please help us a lot. When we said we would take K-pop into the U.S., nobody believed us. Even when people said, ‘Why are you dragging Wonder Girls there and making the kids suffer?’ or ‘Park Jin-young has caught America syndrome,’ it left a bruise on my heart. But it was so cool. Isn’t it great to introduce our music to the U.S.? Back then, Bang Si-hyuk and I went together, lived in a single room, and even fought over laundry, but we went because it seemed like it would become something amazing. Thinking about it now makes me tear up. There is a vision of Korea bustling with K-pop fans. Isn’t that so cool? If that happens, it will bring immense happiness to all of us. It will also bring real benefits to the singers and companies involved.”
Reporter Baek Ji-eun silk781220@sportschosun.com
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