KCON has completed the live broadcast of KCON:TACT 2020 SUMMER, seeing over 4.81 million viewers tune-in from 152 countries over the course of the week – June 20 to 26. A first of its kind event KCON:TACT featured 33 artist teams and delivered more than 600 paid and free pieces of content during the festival. The event has accumulated a total of 15.1 million views as of today.
All performances were broadcast live from the world class television production studio in Seoul, South Korea with a portion of all proceeds going to UNESCO’s Learning Never Stops campaign to help children impacted by COVID-19 around the world to continue their education.
KCON:TACT delivered an immersive experience incorporating AR, VR, and XR (Extended Reality) technologies that created unique imaginative set designs for each performance and enhanced interactivity between the fans and artists. Special performances featured fans singing, dancing, and chanting along with the artists live on broadcast through a giant wall of virtual screens. Meet & greet sessions showcased an “AR Tower” created uniquely for each artist. The tower was completed by fans participating via live chat during the session. The event also featured a new AR drawing technology which was used by the artists as a special way to connect with the fans. Artists also decorated and signed items like sneakers to give away to the live audience during the stream in appreciation of donations being made by fans to help children around the world continue their education.
“We started KCON in 2012 with a mission to globalize Korean culture and have seen it grow tremendously over the past 8 years with over 1.1 million total accumulated attendees. Our first ever virtual festival KCON:TACT 2020 SUMMER brought together 4.81 million fans from around the world over one week,” said Hyun Kim, Head of Global Festival at CJ ENM. “Knowing the standards our fans expect when it comes to an interactive concert experience, we set out to create something that would bring fans worldwide as close as possible to their favorite stars inside of a virtual space. We’ll continue to provide new ways for fans to connect with Korean music and culture via both traditional and digital festivals.”
The marathon stream – KCON:TACT SUMMER – was seven full days in a row of live performances from K-pop’s biggest artists, meet and greet sessions, influencer led panels, and more. Beyond the high-tech performances, fans could also watch behind-the-scenes footage of the artists getting ready, 360 VR peeks inside artist green rooms, fancams of specific performers in 4K, replays of past KCON concerts, and more. The live components will end on June 26th, but fans with a membership will be able the entire show on demand for a month from when their membership started.
Artists participating in KCON:TACT 2020 were AB6IX, ASTRO, ATEEZ, BVNDIT, CHUNG HA, CRAVITY, EVERGLOW, IZ*ONE, GFRIEND, (G)I-DLE, GOLDEN CHILD, ITZY, JO1, KANG DANIEL, KIM JAE-HWAN, LOONA, MAMAMOO, MONSTA X, NATTY, NATURE, N.FLYING, OH MY GIRL, ONEUS, ONF, PENTAGON, SF9, STRAY KIDS, THE BOYZ TOMORROW X TOGETHER, TOO, VERIVERY, and VICTON.
KCON has teamed up with YouTube to broadcast KCON:TACT 2020 SUMMER, which was streamed exclusively on the Mnet K-Pop YouTube channel (www.youtube/mnet) globally. YouTube introduced the Channel Memberships feature for the first time in Korea through KCON:TACT.
KCON enters its ninth year of bringing the ultimate Korean culture fan experience worldwide. Since the festival’s inception in 2012, KCON has seen tremendous growth in attendance. Last year, KCON USA closed out the summer with over 158,000 attendees, breaking its previous attendance record. KCON LA expanded to four full days for the first time in 2019 as demand for tickets boomed.
Mnet, a leading music entertainment network, part of CJ ENM, and the organizer of KCON, was able to bring its expertise as the producers of Mcountdown and MAMA to KCON:TACT 2020 SUMMER to further its core goal of giving fans around the world more access to the best in K-pop music and Korean culture.