CJ’s K-culture event draws record-high numbers in Japan

CHIBA, JAPAN – A global K-pop concert hosted by CJ ENM Co., a South Korean entertainment powerhouse, heated up the venue in Japan with an audience of 15,000 on Sunday night. The enthusiastic fans shouted out the names of the idols on the stage, responding to the performers’ movements blown up on huge screens at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, about 50 kilometers from Tokyo, one of the largest convention centers in Asia.

KCON Japan 2023 attracted 123,000 people to the concert and exhibition of Korean food, cosmetics, fashion and content products between May 12 and 14. It was the most populated KCON since the CJ Group unit held the Korean culture festival in 2012, the company said on Monday.

Among the stars on the stage was Zerobaseone, a nine-member boy group to debut in July. Le Serrafim, a girl group from K-pop sensation BTS’ music label HYBE Corp., and ITZY and NiziU, produced by JYP Entertainment Corp.

The number of attendees nearly doubled the 65,000 who came to a similar event held in the Japanese capital last October, thanks to the country’s lifting indoor mask guidance in mid-March. The government also downgraded COVID-19 to a Class 5 disease such as seasonal influenza from May 8.

Many Korean fans visited the event as Japan lifted its pandemic restrictions on foreign tourists last October. Hundreds of fans without tickets who had come to the concert venue in hopes that someone would sell or yield their tickets to them watched the event on livestream outside. The K-pop concert’s livestream viewership hit about 5.7 million, according to CJ ENM.

The event hosted 259 booths in the exhibition halls for Korean food, fashion and beauty products as well as webtoons and drama series. Under cooperation with the Korean government, about 40 small and mid-sized Korean firms participated in the event to accelerate their business expansion in Japan. Young Poong, a small enterprise making Korean snacks, rice cake and kimchi, snagged a 500 million yen ($3.7 million) deal during the exhibition, CJ ENM said.

Write to Yeong-Hyo Jeong at hugh@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.