Bands unite in Paris for world's largest K-pop festival
Poster for "KCON" / Courtesy of CJ E&M
By Kim Da-hee
K-pop bands including SHINee, f(x) and Block B will unite Thursday for the world’s largest K-pop festival ― at Paris’ Accor Hotel ― with Korean President Park Geun-hye attending.
In line with Park’s state visit to France on June 1-4, Paris is the first European destination of the “KCON” festival, an annual event that combines with conventions for Korean food, products and culture.
CJ E&M, Korea’s leading entertainment and media company, started the festival in California in 2012 to promote Korean culture. It has been held around the world, including New York, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The latest KCON in Los Angeles in 2015 attracted about 58,000 fans.
K-pop boy band Super Junior performs on Aug. 1 in Los Angeles as part of the KCON 2015 festival. / Yonhap
The festival’s concert is hugely popular, with the first batch of 10,000 tickets gone within three hours in April and the second batch of 20,000 sold out within an hour in May.
K-pop boy band Super Junior’s Lee Teuk will host the concert. The lineup also includes boy band Bangtan Boys, rock band F.T. Islands and girl band I.O.I. Actor Jin Goo, who played a supporting role in mega-hit TV series “Descendants of the Sun,” and actress Han Ji-min, who played a supporting role in global hit TV series "Daejanggeum," or "Jewel in the Palace" (2003-04), will also attend.