SM C&C to Create Busan Global Music Festival

Busan City and Busan Tourism Organization Sign Business Agreement
K-Pop Content and Local Tourism Activation Partnership
Commitment to Promote Content Business Based on Local Economy

SM Culture & Contents (SM C&C) announced on the 19th that it has signed a public-private joint business memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Busan Metropolitan City and Busan Tourism Organization to globally expand K-Culture content.

Through this agreement, SM C&C plans to expand the Busan-style popular music festival linked with K-pop into a global music festival brand and promote a new content business that combines popular music events based on the local economy.

On the 18th, participants are taking a commemorative photo at the public-private joint project business agreement ceremony for the global expansion of Busan-style K-Culture content held at SM C&C Seongsu Building in Seongdong-gu, Seoul. (From left) Namgung Cheol, CEO of SM C&C; Park Hyung-jun, Mayor of Busan Metropolitan City; Lee Jeong-sil, President of Busan Tourism Corporation. Photo by SM C&C

SM C&C was selected as the first private company to jointly invest in content projects with Busan City and Busan Tourism Organization. Operating in advertising agency, travel, content, and entertainment businesses, SM C&C will enter the full-scale content IP business industry through this MOU. The strategy is to revitalize the local economy by combining the region’s popular culture and arts infrastructure with tourism and the K-Culture industry network.

SM C&C and Busan City will develop festival storytelling and fandom programs using advanced technology. The goal is to expand into performance content combining various genres beyond K-pop. In addition to performances, large-scale conferences, preview screenings, and other programs will be promoted to broaden the scope of the music industry market.

Through this agreement, Busan City will oversee the Busan-style popular music content development project conducted as a public-private joint business, and Busan Tourism Organization will be responsible for joint planning and operation of the project. SM C&C will provide experts in content and festival fields, plan the festival brand IP business, and make direct investments.

Namgoong Cheol, CEO of SM C&C, stated, "This joint project holds monumental significance as it aims to establish itself not only as the industrialization of Busan-style popular music and the development of the local popular music ecosystem but also as a global K-Culture content IP business mediated by core local tourism content. We approach this with a heavy sense of responsibility. Based on SM C&C’s systematic global IP business expertise and the human, material resources, and know-how accumulated over many years in cultural content business, we will do our best to ensure that the Busan-style popular music festival successfully leaps beyond Korea to become a global brand."

A representative from Busan Metropolitan City said, "With enhanced content capabilities and networks, we will continue to communicate and cooperate broadly so that Hallyu events held in Busan become a sustainable source of music content and Busan becomes a hub that advances Korean popular music to the next level."

A representative from Busan Tourism Organization also expressed gratitude, saying, "We appreciate SM C&C’s decision to invest directly in Busan. By combining the organization’s experience, Busan’s infrastructure, and SM C&C’s expertise, we will do our best to help Busan become a global hub city and a representative K-content city."

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