Last week, KCON USA presented by Toyota, the world’s largest Korean culture convention and music festival, announced co-ed group K.A.R.D and Wanna One as the latest additions to KCON 2017 LA’s concert lineup. Woohoo!
K.A.R.D and Wanna One join ASTRO, COSMIC GIRLS, GIRL’S DAY, HEIZE, NCT 127, SEVENTEEN, SF9, and VIXX in what’s shaping up to be a pretty flipping awesome 2 day lineup. The crazy thing is, KCON isn’t done announcing artists yet! Who knows which artists we might be squealing over in the not-too-distant future?
But before I get ahead of myself, let me take a minute to introduce you these two new and totally squeal-worthy groups…
K.A.R.D is a co-ed group formed by DSP Media in 2016. The group has four members: J.Seph, B.M, Somin, and Jiwoo. The group released the first single for their trilogy pre-debut project, “K.A.R.D Project,” titled “Oh NaNa” featuring label-mate Heo Young-ji as a hidden member. Their second project single “Don’t Recall” was released in February 2017 followed by its English version as the hidden track. Their final project single “RUMOR” was released in April followed by its dance-video version as the last “hidden card” before their official debut. “RUMOR” charted #1 in 13 countries on iTunes’ main charts. K.A.R.D is expected to make their official debut in mid-July this year and that makes me so darn happy!
Wanna One is an eleven-member boy group formed from Mnet’s survival boy group reality show Produce 101, Season 2. The final members as well as group name were chosen by the public audience’s votes. The members who took top 11 in the final were Kang Daniel, Park Ji-hoon, Lee Dae-hwi, Kim Jae-hwan, Ong Seong-woo, Park Woo-jin, Lai Kuan-lin, Yoon Ji-seong, Hwang Min-hyun, Bae Jin-young, and Ha Sung-woon. The group will officially start promoting in August 2017 which means KCON will be one of their first official appearances as a group. That also means that KCON LA will be their first overseas appearance which is pretty darn exciting, not only for us as fans but for the group as well. Ack! Their time at KCON is gonna be so much fun!
On the convention side of things, we can expect to see the return of popular attractions including the Flower Boy Café (which I’ve always been super curious about but never actually gotten to experience so maybe I’ll get a ticket this year and check it out because, you know, coffee and flower boys just kinda go together… Don’t they?); Klub KCON, a dance party on opening night of the festival that often has special guest appearances; and KCON Foot Street, a giant food market curated by the team at KTOWN Night Market. (And I’m all about stopping by every single one of those food trucks… Gah! Everything last year looked and smelled so good!)
If you’re looking to get in on this incredible weekend of fun, you’re in luck. Combo tickets for the concerts will be available for purchase starting on July 14 and single tickets will be available on July 17 at 10am PST via www.KCONUSA.com. Meanwhile, Convention, Flower Boy Café, and Klub KCON tickets go on-sale July 21 via www.KCONUSA.com.
As always, for the latest KCON news and tickets, you’re invited to visit www.kconusa.com, follow @KCONUSA on Twitter, where additional artist line-up and other information are being announced and join the conversation with #KCON17LA. Of course you can always check back here for the latest KCON news or, you know, just to squeal over this dang lethal lineup. I mean how the heck am I gonna manage to see Leo… Zuho… Johnny… … Moonbin… … … B… M… … … Woo… … … NOPE! Just the though of all these biases together in one place is enough to do me in! *falls over dead*