With the recent cancellation of the KPOP LUX festival in London, Cherry Chu investigates the possible reasons as to why UK K-pop festivals struggle.

*K-pop festivals have seen success across the world, but seem to be hit or miss when they come to the UK. Image:* *Danny Howe* on *Unsplash*.

With K-pop’s popularity in the West continuing to rise rapidly, it’s unsurprising that many groups are deciding to bring their tours to Europe and the UK. The likes of BLACKPINK, TWICE, and KARD have all taken to the stage in London to show off their talents.

However, festivals are arguably the best way to bring together large crowds of K-pop fans for one major event. These kinds of events are not uncommon in South Korea and Japan, with universities often holding concerts with lots of K-pop artists performing and the famous MAMA Awards being held in Tokyo this year.

The success of K.FLEX

Following the success of the Kpop Flex concert in Frankfurt in 2022, the company K.FLEX announced that they would be bringing a similar festival to the O2 arena in London for even more K-pop fun. With huge names such as ENHYPEN, EXO’s KAI, and IVE all taking to the stage in Germany, fans couldn’t wait for the British lineup to be announced.

Whilst K.FLEX’s lineup included some lesser-known groups — both old and new — it was still star-studded. WINNER and PENTAGON were the biggest names set to perform, with VIVIZ and BILLLIE supporting thanks to their viral moments. However, following the Itaewon tragedy, the 2022 K.FLEX concert was cancelled out of respect.

New beginnings?

In partnership with SBS, K.FLEX rebranded as KPOP LUX and announced they would be holding a 2023 concert in Madrid with a lineup as similarly exciting as the Frankfurt show. STAYC and ATEEZ performed to the delight of European K-pop fans but the concert's biggest name had to be SHINee, who had never toured in Europe before. KPOP LUX’s huge success once again led to the planning of a UK event.

ZEROBASEONE fan, Izak, 19, mentions being slightly wary of the event due to previous cancellations: “I was really sceptical at first but seeing as they had just successfully had an event in Madrid, I gave them a chance.”

KStars employee Jasmine, 23 from Manchester, also had reservations about the logistics of the event: “In the UK/Europe we don’t get many actual concerts, just festivals that have often been last minute or change multiple times. It’s really hard to trust when the events will actually go forward nowadays.”

This time, K-pop would be taking over the O2 arena for three days. The lineup was slowly announced to increase engagement until the company began missing deadlines promised to fans. Fans started to comment under KPOP LUX’s Instagram posts asking for more information surrounding the show. With ticket prices being so high for the concert, fans were worried about having possibly wasted their money.

However, after much deliberation, KPOP LUX decided to cancel the Sunday show and have ITZY, THE BOYZ, and TXT headlining the Friday and Saturday shows to allow fans to make the most of their ticket.

Miscommunication and missing information

After a few more weeks of minimal communication from KPOP LUX, the company decided that it would be best to cancel the entire concert, making this another K-pop festival in the UK to not go ahead as planned. Izak mentions some of the effects that this cancellation had on European K-pop fans: “Many fans booked non-refundable flights and trains and hotels as Europe doesn’t get too many K-pop events.”

Some fans believe that lower ticket sales may be a reason behind the cancellation. “This is a lot of the groups’ first time performing in the UK so booking the O2 arena for 3 days without any knowledge of how popular the groups are here is a bit ridiculous”, states Izak.

With the ongoing cost of living crisis, many fans are unwilling to pay over £100 for concerts where their favourite groups are not performing. Even though K-pop is quite popular in the UK, perhaps KPOP LUX overestimated how many fans would be able to access the concert, whether financially or physically.

Content creator Ian Lau has brought MarketWatch data on Live Co Group (reported to own KPOP LUX) to the attention of fans in an Instagram reel covering the event. As Ian uncovers, in a published article for MarketWatch, Joe Hoppe declares that “Live Company’s shares have been suspended since early July, after it failed to publish its 2022 accounts by the deadline of June 30 under AIM rules”.

This seems to highlight that there may be more complex reasons as to why the KPOP LUX concert was forced to cancel. Without an official statement from the company themselves, it’s impossible to know for certain the reasons behind the concert's cancellation.

“Fan”tastic solutions

To counteract the monetary losses through train tickets and flights, many fans decided to still visit London and create their own events. Izak helped to run an event dedicated to ZEROBASEONE fans at SideQuest in Westfield, which included giving away many freebies, such as photocards, banners, film strips, photocard trading, and a special photo corner. Whilst the event was mainly for ZEROSE, there were many items available for other acts that were expected to perform over the weekend.

ZEROBASEONE fans gather for their own event in place of the cancelled KPOPLUX show. Images: Izak (@ZB1eventsLondon).

As soon as the news broke, popular Manchester-based store, KStars, were so upset that they knew they had to put on an event to boost fans' spirits. It was particularly difficult for staff that had to tell customers, who had come in to buy lightsticks especially for the event, about the cancellation.

“Instead of sitting at home upset that we weren’t in London, we put our heads together and tried to come up with anything we could do in a week's notice”, says Jasmine.

The team had to create their freebies themselves and make an event out of the stock they already had. Other K-pop stores across the UK offered special deals, like Sokollab providing fans with 10% discounts on a variety of the groups’ albums.

The KStars store was sure to bring joy to saddened K-pop fans. Images: KStars’ Jasmine.

A glimmer of hope?

While it seems that the UK is struggling to drum up attention for K-pop festivals, the 2021 MIK festival was hugely successful. With the first day focusing on K-pop and the second on Korean hip-hop, MIK had something for everyone. The festival went ahead with only a minimal hitch as BILLLIE had to drop out due to COVID-19 and remains as one of the best K-pop festivals in Europe. If the MIK festival is anything to go by, international K-pop fans should not be worried about missing out on amazing performances.

Watch Cherry Chu Magazine’s MIK Festival Day One video here. (Thank you to MIK Festival for the press tickets.)

No matter how you spent the weekend of the cancelled KPOP LUX, fans hope that, in the future, a successful K-pop festival will be able to make it to the UK.

However, the quick turnaround of fan events highlights the sense of community that K-pop often creates for people. These allow fans from all over the country to get together and make new friends in spite of the situation. Even though we weren’t able to see our favourite groups perform, being able to spend the weekend with other fans and get some adorable freebies from it doesn’t seem like the worst trade-off!

Edited by Gabii Rayner.