Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKorean pop-culture fest KCON LA wrapped up an in-person edition on Sunday with a second multi-act concert that largely filled Los Angeles’ Crypto.com arena.The mania for Korean culture seemed barely diminished by the COVID hiatus, during which time the genre’s digital natives gathered virtually and KCON morphed into KCON:TACT.The seamless flow between fandom’s online and offline iterations was a dominant feature of the convention, held in person for the first time since 2019.
And organizers Monday confirmed that the three-day convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center attracted more than 90,000 real world visitors, plus a further 7.17 million worldwide via video streaming. “The Asian American community, they existed 12 years ago [when KCON started].
They were at home. Now they are everywhere. They didn’t have a community,” said Kevin Woo, a San Francisco-native singer and actor who was trained and achieved success within the Korean talent system.
He is next heading to Broadway with “K-Pop: The Musical” in mid-October.At a presentation Friday, Woo talked about his own journey through K-Pop and the genre’s intense and unceasing fandom. “I envy this generation.
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