Presidential Popular Culture Exchange Committee Launched under President Lee
"New Festival to Surpass Coachella"
Plans for Intellectual Property Protection and On-Site Support
Jinyoung Park, co-chairman of the Popular Culture Exchange Committee, is presenting the committee's vision at the inauguration ceremony held on the 1st at Kintex in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Yonhap News
Jinyoung Park, Chief Producer of JYP Entertainment, announced at the inauguration ceremony of the Presidential Popular Culture Exchange Committee held on October 1 at Kintex in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, "We will build a world-class K-pop performance venue and make global festivals a regular event."
He outlined the committee's operational direction as follows: construction of performance venues, establishment of global flagship stores, hosting of international festivals, and the establishment of systems for intellectual property protection and on-site support. He explained that the performance venues would be developed not just as stages but as cultural infrastructure to enhance the audience's experience, and that flagship stores, featuring merchandise and experiential content, would be operated in seven major cities worldwide.
Chairman Park stated, "While the existing entertainment industry has seen consumers purchase music, films, or food as needed, Korea must now become the center of the 'entertainment fandom' industry, where consumers actively become partners with artists and brands."
To this end, starting in December 2027, Korea plans to host a global awards ceremony and festival called 'Phenomenon (Fan+Phenomenon)', where artists, content, and brands most loved by fans that year will be recognized. Chairman Park added, "From 2028, we will expand this into a summer outdoor festival touring major cities around the world." He emphasized, "Our goal is to create a new festival that surpasses Coachella."
He also pledged on-site support and protection of intellectual property (IP). "We will establish a hotline for K-culture event operators to cooperate with relevant ministries in the event of an emergency," he said, "and we will respond to IP infringement on a global scale."
(Center) President Lee Jae-myung is taking a commemorative photo holding a cheering light stick with (left) Park Jin-young and Choi Hwi-young, co-chairmen of the Popular Culture Exchange Committee, at the K-Culture Experience Zone during the launch ceremony of the Popular Culture Exchange Committee held on the 1st. Photo by Yonhap News
On the inauguration stage, the group Le Sserafim from Hybe and Stray Kids from JYP Entertainment performed celebratory stages.
At the experience zone set up at the venue, when President Lee Jaemyung remarked, "I saw a lot of these last winter" after seeing the cheering sticks, Chairman Park explained, "Cheering sticks give fans the experience of becoming part of the performance. This is a unique strength of K-pop."
The Popular Culture Exchange Committee is an advisory body under the President, established to set a national vision for popular culture exchange policy and to strengthen public-private cooperation. On the government side, vice ministers from ten ministries and the Presidential Office's Chief Secretary for Social Affairs are participating, while on the private side, 26 experts from various fields, including Jinyoung Park and the heads of agencies such as Hybe, SM Entertainment, and YG Entertainment, have been appointed as members.
On this day, President Lee presented letters of appointment as exchange committee members to Chairman Park, Myungmoo Park, CEO of NCSoft, Sangbaek Lee, CEO of AStory, Minseok Yang, CEO of YG Entertainment, Byunghak Lee, CEO of Nongshim, and Sungho Jang, CEO of MoFAC Studio, among others.
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