Last week, KCON USA presented by Toyota, announced the addition of three artists – Cosmic Girls, Heize, and Seventeen – to the packed two-day concert line-up at KCON 2017 Los Angeles. (I think it might be time to break out my happy dance!)
As if having ASTRO, GIRL’S DAY, NCT 127, SF9 and VIXX wasn’t exciting enough, the world’s largest Korean culture convention and music festival, has given Hallyu fans even more reason to look forward to this year’s LA convention. Even more exciting is the fact that KCON is promising more artists announcements in the coming weeks! That means we should have a pretty solid lineup of artists announced before tickets go on sale later this month.
For those of you who might be unfamiliar with this new set of artists here’s a quick introduction:
Cosmic Girls, also known as WJSN, is a Korean-Chinese girl group formed by both Starship Entertainment and Yuehua Entertainment. The group is currently composed of thirteen members: Seola, Xuan Yi, Bona, Exy, Soobin, Luda, Dawon, Eunseo, Cheng Xiao, Mei Qi, Yeoreum, Dayoung, and Yeonjung. They debuted with their first EP album [WOULD YOU LIKE?] in February 2016, which included title tracks “Mo Mo Mo” and “Catch Me.” In August 2016, Cosmic Girls released their second mini-album, [THE SECRET], with I.O.I’s Yeonjung added as the group’s 13th member. In January 2017, Cosmic Girls released [From. WJSN] with title track “I Wish.” On June 7th, Cosmic Girls released their first full-length studio album, [HAPPY MOMENT], composed of 10 new songs, including title track “HAPPY.”
Heize is a South Korean singer-songwriter and rapper. She made her debut in 2014 with her self-titled mini-album Heize. She participated in Mnet’s hip-hop survival reality show Unpretty Rapstar Vol.2 in 2015. Last July she released her second EP album, And July, with title track “And July” featuring DEAN and DJ Fritz. Her single “Star,” released in 2016, charted at #1 on Gaon Digital Chart upon its release. She has also participated in the making of several Korean dramas’ original soundtracks, including “Did You Ride UFO?” for Jealousy Incarnate in 2016 and “Round and Round” for Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (aka Goblin) in 2017. Just last week, Heize made her comeback and achieved an all-kill with her new mini album, You, Clouds, Rain.
Seventeen is a 13-member boy group who debuted under Pledis Entertainment in 2015. The members are S.Coups, Jeonghan, Joshua, Jun, Hoshi, Wonwoo, Woozi, DK, Mingyu, The8, Seungkwan, Vernon, and Dino. They are also active with three different sub-units: “Hip Hop Unit,” “Vocal Unit,” and “Performance Unit.” The group is known as the “self-producing” idol group as the members are deeply involved in the composition and production of their discography and choreography. Seventeen debuted on May 26 with a live showcase and was the first male K-pop group to debut with a one-hour live showcase on a major broadcasting channel. Their first EP, 17 Carat, was released along with the music video for title track “Adore U” on May 29, 2015. 17 Carat later became the longest-charting K-pop album of the year in the U.S. and was the only rookie album to appear on Billboard’s “10 Best K-pop Albums of 2015” chart. Since then, they have released one studio album, Love & Letter (2016), and two more Eps, Boys Be (2015) and Going Seventeen (2016).
For those of you wondering how you can be a part of this upcoming weekend of Hallyu epicness, here ya go… Combo tickets will go on sale starting July 14, while single tickets will be available starting July 17. Both sales will begin at 10am PST via www.KCONUSA.com. Ticket pricing and tiers are available through the events homepage so be sure to go check it out.
For the latest KCON news and tickets, you’re invited to visit www.kconusa.com and follow @KCONUSA on Twitter, there you can join the conversation with #KCON17LA. Of course I’ll be here to squeal over all the latest KCON news so be sure to check back often!