Thousands of K-Pop fans waited up in downtown Los Angeles hours before the doors opened, stretching for blocks in the hot sun for KCON LA 2023. K-Pop fans danced and traded homemade stickers, banners, bracelets, and photocards while wearing pleated skirts and platform shoes and carrying the transparent bags that have become stadium standards. Inside was their paradise: an IRL space where they could talk about their URL obsessions.

If anything, the 2023 LA KCON was a microcosm of K-pop’s overall impact on the music business.

From Friday to Sunday, an estimated 140,000 people from all over the world attended panels, premium meet-and-greets, interviews, dance breaks, concerts, and more at the Los Angeles Convention Centre and adjacent Crypto.com Arena.

Inside the convention centre, fans brandished light-sticks of their favourite groups, flaunted DIY shirts with simple, direct inscriptions like “I HEART MINGI,” gathered sticker books and K-beauty products and waited in line for tteokbokki.

According to Steve Chung, chief worldwide officer of organisers CJ ENM, KCON began 11 years ago in Irvine, California, gathering 10,000 people to its maiden celebration of Korean culture. It is now a global event taking place in several countries: KCON has already visited Thailand, Japan, and the United States in 2023.

“In those (11) years, we’ve welcomed something like half a million people from all over the world,” he explains.

Panels on K-pop songwriting and cup sleeve creations were held in Los Angeles (K-pop fan gatherings are hosted at cafes on an idol’s birthday, anniversary, or other important date). On one stage, up-and-coming groups such as NMIXX led dance courses, while another stage allowed rookie groups to introduce themselves to a larger audience.

The Associated Press met with a wide range of fans during the weekend, including some who drove 12 hours straight from Utah, flew in from the United Kingdom, and were of various ages, genders, colours, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

“The culture of inclusiveness is huge,” said Annya Holston, 40, of Florida, who discovered K-pop through her daughter. “Being here has allowed us to make so many new friends.”

Premium tickets were $500 per day and included access to a “Red Carpet” area where acts posed for photographs and answered two or three questions in a 30-minute window, as well as admission to the conference and concert. Fans may spend an extra $100 for “Hi-Touch” — a fast meet-and-greet in which fans and performers high-five — with one group of their choice. With fresh fears about the spread of COVID-19, “Hi-Touch” became “Hi-Wave” (exactly what it sounds like, much to the sorrow of a few fans wishing for that physical connection; others were content with the sheer proximity).

Those encounters provided as a nice reminder of a component of the music industry that K-pop understands incredibly well, and much better than most: fanbase is the most profitable and durable resource in this business.
On Friday, August 18, 2023, fans attend KCON at the Los Angeles Convention Centre. Chris Pizzello/AP Photo

Peyton Tran, a 17-year-old dancer from Los Angeles, told AP at KCON, “It’s just cool to see how much people can support these businesses out here.”

The music industry will encounter new issues in 2023, including what Mark Mulligan, a MIDiA Research music industry analyst, has dubbed the “fragmentation of fandom.”

New musicians face unprecedented competition as a result of algorithmic listening, which is a direct result of the streaming era.

Consider this: It is uncommon for a new act to ascend to the status of monolithic pop star — the ranks of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Harry Styles, all of whom began performing prior to streaming — because listenership is hyper-specific.

In K-pop, where companies are typically fully integrated institutions — a record label and a talent agency rolled into one — and hyper-consumption is encouraged, business focuses on cultivating a community of superfans and inspiring those devoted listeners to advocate for their favourite artists, fueling a sense of participation that extends beyond their purchasing power. It doesn’t hurt that K-pop fans have a tendency to coordinate worldwide fan movements on their own and construct rituals and events, communicating through specialised fandom sites such as WeVerse and Vlive.

Niche does not imply small; rather, it signifies specialised. KCON is proof of this.

Fans saw K-pop groups and soloists from all “generations” perform at the concerts, which were held all three nights for the first time: Taemin from the second-generation boy band SHINee, Rain — the first K-pop idol to go international, and now a manager himself — fourth-generation boy bands ATEEZ and Stray Kids, and rookie groups like XG and ZEROBASEONE.

XG performed songs like the Kesha-inspired “TGIF,” with production greatly influenced by the current liquid drum-and-bass/U.K. garage movement in global pop music, a welcomed retro-futuristic sound from a group and convention with their sights set on the future.

Notably, these concerts prioritised K-pop girl groups, reflecting a recent shift in listenership. Boy bands were supposed to be more profitable in the past, but girl groups like IVE, ITZY, NMIXX, Kep1er, (G)I-DLE, and EVERGLOW proved that was outdated thinking in their spectacular KCON sets.

The “Dream Stage,” where a few dozen fans who auditioned to perform a dance with a K-pop group earlier in the day were brought out to do just that, was a particularly unique and powerful moment throughout the event.

On the second day of the convention, iHeartRadio’s KIIS-FM established a new, open-to-the-public “K-pop Village,” where K-pop fans could enjoy free performances by newer talents, such as LEO, who made his U.S. debut on the outdoor stage.

“2023 is similar to a crossover event.” “The last ten years have been about serving an endemic fanbase of people who already know and love K-pop,” Chung explains. “As evidenced by the iHeartMedia partnership, it’s really like a crossover moment where K-pop goes mainstream.”

Even Tropical Storm Hilary couldn’t keep the most ardent fans from queuing in the rain to watch their favourite performances on the convention’s last day. On the train the night before, the AP asked a K-pop fan from Massachusetts, known on YouTube as Toadcola, if he was worried about the weather. Not at all.

But if the weather cancelled his trip home, he reasoned that it wouldn’t be so bad because the idols might be stuck at the airport with him.