[Summary] 'Voice Korea', "In-person auditions at office during COVID-19" → "Location changed to outdoors"

'The Voice Korea 2020' official poster / Photo by Mnet

[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Kim Seul-gi] CJ ENM, which had taken measures such as closing its headquarters due to confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), announced that it will hold in-person auditions for the Mnet entertainment program 'Voice Korea 2020' (Voice Korea), sparking controversy.

On the 30th, Mnet stated that starting from that day, in-person auditions for participants who had applied online since the 26th would be held at the CJ ENM headquarters in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul.

The auditions held that day were reported to involve participants who passed the first round of auditions through online singing videos sequentially taking part in the second round of auditions in front of the production team. Accordingly, criticism arose over the possibility of COVID-19 spread due to unavoidable contact between people.

In response, the 'Voice Korea' side announced that "the participant evaluations for Voice Korea scheduled for this afternoon have been changed to be held at an external location instead of the CJ ENM headquarters."

They explained, "Disinfection measures were carried out inside the headquarters over the past weekend, and access was allowed after a 24-hour closure following the completion of disinfection, but the location was changed as a precautionary measure."

They added, "We tried to stagger the times so that all participants would not gather by conducting evaluations one participant at a time as needed," and "For the evaluations held at the headquarters today, several preparations were made, including all production staff wearing masks, maintaining a 2-meter distance between evaluators and participants, placing individual covers on participants' microphones, and providing thermal scanners, hand sanitizers, and masks on site."

Earlier, on the 28th, CJ ENM had closed the entire headquarters and initiated emergency disinfection measures after one employee was confirmed to have COVID-19.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.