Global K-pop Stars Gather in Busan!

Busan City-Korea Music Content Association to Sign Agreement at City Hall on 12th at 2 PM

Global K-Pop Music Chart 'Circle Chart Music Awards' to be Held in Busan

Busan City announced that on the 12th at 2 PM, it will sign a business agreement with the Korea Music Content Association (President Kim Chang-hwan) at the City Hall International Protocol Room to regularly host the global K-pop awards ceremony, the 'Circle Chart Music Awards,' in Busan.

The 'Circle Chart Music Awards' has been held since 2011 by the Korea Music Content Association, which is composed of member companies including major domestic record producers, distributors, and overseas direct distributors.

It is a global K-pop awards ceremony based on objective data from the 'Circle Chart,' the only nationally certified K-pop chart in Korea, recognizing artists and music industry professionals who have achieved outstanding results throughout the year.

Circle Chart Music Awards.

At the signing ceremony, Busan Mayor Park Hyung-joon and Kim Chang-hwan, a popular music composer and leading domestic music producer as well as president of the Korea Music Content Association, will attend and personally sign the business agreement.

The agreement includes ▲ continuous hosting of the 'Circle Chart Music Awards' in Busan from 2024 to 2026 ▲ expansion of local tourism content utilizing K-pop ▲ various cooperation measures such as city promotion plans.

Upon signing this agreement, the Korea Music Content Association will continuously hold the “Circle Chart Music Awards” in Busan from 2024 to 2026, and Busan City promises administrative support for the successful hosting of the awards ceremony.

Additionally, the city and the Korea Music Content Association will establish a special award tentatively named ‘Busan is good’ to promote the city brand of Busan as an international tourist city, jointly promote tourism commercialization using the awards ceremony, and cooperate to foster the local music content industry and tourism industry.

Through this agreement, Busan will become the first city outside of Seoul to host the ‘Circle Chart Music Awards,’ attracting the global K-pop fandom to Busan and establishing the awards ceremony as a key winter tourism content in Busan.

The 14th Circle Chart Music Awards ceremony will be held around January next year at BEXCO in Busan, where top K-pop artists are expected to perform, anticipating a global K-pop fandom influx to Busan.

Busan, which is relatively evaluated as lacking winter tourism content, plans to actively conduct marketing to attract domestic and overseas tourists, including from Japan, by developing linked tourism products through collaboration with the Korea Music Content Association until 2026, utilizing the ‘Circle Chart Music Awards.’

Kim Chang-hwan, president of the Korea Music Content Association, stated, “K-pop is the industry where the status of K-content in the global market can be most clearly felt. The association has officially partnered with global platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube to launch the ‘Global K-pop Chart,’ which collects K-pop data worldwide. Last year, we rebranded the existing 'Gaon Chart' to 'Circle Chart' and selected major award winners of the 'Circle Chart Awards' based on data from the ‘Global K-pop Chart,’ creating an awards ceremony that all K-pop fans worldwide can relate to.”

He added, “Recently, with the promotional effect of hosting the 2030 Busan World Expo, Busan’s global city brand value has rapidly increased. Knowing that Busan recognizes and actively supports the value of the content industry, we chose Busan as the host city for this awards ceremony. I am confident that this agreement will be a great opportunity for both the Circle Chart Awards and Busan City.”

Mayor Park Hyung-joon said, “As seen in last year’s BTS concert in Busan, the term ‘Fan-dustry,’ which combines fans and industry, has recently emerged, showing the tremendous gathering power and industrial influence of K-pop. Knowing that cultural tourism content is a crucial factor in raising the city’s brand value and transforming Busan into a global hub city, we have been discovering various tourism contents and aggressively attracting global intellectual property (IP) since the 8th administration.”

He continued, “The opening of ‘Arte Museum Busan’ is scheduled for this November, and we are promoting the ‘Baby Shark’s Hometown’ project, a world-class intellectual property (IP). The world-renowned art circus ‘Cirque du Soleil’ is also scheduled to perform in Busan until 2030. Through this agreement, we will spare no effort to actively support Busan becoming the city of the Circle Chart Awards, just like Las Vegas is for the Grammy Awards.”

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