KCON:TACT 4 U held by CJ ENM from the 19th to the 27th featured 26 artist teams and more than 5 million audiences across 155 countries/regions, emerging as the world’s largest global K-Culture festival that connects artists and fans.
KCONTACT opened its doors in June last year as an online K-Culture festival in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. KCONTACT has held a total of four events, including the latest one entitled KCON:TACT 4 U, amassing a total of 18 million fans around the world.
KCON:TACT 4 U has captivated fans around the world with its varied programs including (1) Concerts of major K-pop artists and online Meet&Greet fan meets, (2) V DIUM X KCON: TACT 4 U featuring high-quality sound in a virtual stadium, (3) KCON World Premiere for up-and-coming artists; and (4) KCON STUDIO spreading K-Lifestyle to the entire world through artist-collaborated contents. With CJ ENM’s unique performance directing power and digital platform-optimized technologies, it provided K-culture fans around the world with an expansive festival experience as if they were present at the performance venue.
It first featured a concert staged by 26 singers/bands such as (alphabetically) A.C.E., ASTRO, BTOB, CNBLUE, Everglow, fromis_9, Ghost9, Golden Child, Ha Sung-woon, Highlight, iKON, ITZY, JO1, Loona, Oh My Girl, ONEUS, ONF, P1Harmony, Pentagon, SF9, Stray Kids, The Boyz, TO1, Verivery, Weeekly, and Weki Meki. Fans were captivated by the ‘Fan Featuring’ stage showing both artists and K-pop enthusiasts against the virtual background of previous offline KCON venues in New York in the U.S. and Sydney in Australia, among others. In addition, differentiated performances that could only be seen at KCON:TACT drew great response, such as the collaboration between the ‘EumAkSil (Music Room)’ and ‘Relay Dance’.
Fan focused content where audiences and artists directly interact and communicate through the online fan meeting ‘Meet&Greet’ created lot of buzz. A portion of the proceeds from the concert and Meet&Greet’s Super Chat will be donated to the ‘Girls’ Education’ campaign promoted by CJ and the UNESCO to create a better educational environment for girls around the world.
V DIUM, a virtual 80,000-seat stadium, presented a new paradigm for online performances tapping into even more advanced technologies. 800 fans pre-recorded shouts, choruses, and band performance to emulate a real environment.
KCON World Premiere launched to promote up-and-coming K-pop artists to music fans around the world added to the significance of the event. Ghost9, who debuted in September of last year but could not meet with fans often due to the pandemic situation, enjoyed a valuable opportunity to meet global fans through the KCON World Premiere. With a composition that contains cinematic beauty and worldview, Ghost9 delivered a riveting performance that captivated the audience for 75 minutes, making a great impression on global fans.
Through KCON Studio, K-pop artists and influencers joined hands to introduce various K-cultures including K-beauty and K-food. The Boyz collaborated with the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp. (aT) to release content designed to promote Korea’s representative agri-food and K-food through games whereas BtoB, together with the Small and Medium Enterprises Agricultural and Fishery Cooperation Foundation, introduced Korea’s outstanding SME products to global fans. In addition, famous influencers from the U.S. and Japan took part in a program designed to share stories about K-culture with an aim to bring KCON:TACT 4 U closer to their local audiences.
Kim Hyun-soo, Music Content Division Executive, CJ ENM said, “Although it was a non-face-to-face event, KCON:TACT 4 U focused on technology and directing in order to recreate the sense of realism and vividness of an offline event,” adding, “We plan to provide opportunities for continuous communication with K-Culture fans through new content that all fans can enjoy together in the second half of the year.”
Meanwhile, CJ ENM plans to maintain the momentum by releasing various additional contents of KCON:TACT 4 U. Its behind-the-scenes videos and replay services are available on TVING in Korea and the KCON Official YouTube channel overseas. In July, the highlight video of KCON:TACT 4 U will be broadcast through Mnet, and a new project will be launched for global fans in September.
