Making even more of my dreams come true, KCON USA presented by Toyota, revealed, just last night, that ZION.T and NCT 127 will be the final artist additions to the New York edition of the event series. *squee!*
The world’s largest Korean culture convention and music festival, promises a breakdown for each of the two concerts will be available on May 11. For those of you planning to attend this most exciting of Hallyu-filled weekends, combo tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. PT on Friday, May 12 while single tickets will go on sale Monday, May 15.
In case you’ve somehow missed the past few weeks of artist announcements, the list of artist confirmed for KCON 2017 NY now includes CNBLUE, GFRIEND, HIGHLIGHT (formerly BEAST), KNK, NCT 127, SF9, TWICE, UP10TION and ZION T. *does happy dance of joy*
For those of you who may not know why I’m having just a happy fangirl moment, allow me to take a few moments to introduce you to these artists…
NCT 127 is part of SM Entertainment’s K-pop boy group NCT, which stands for Neo Culture Technology. One of several sub-units to stem from NCT, this particular group consists of nine members: Taeil, Johnny, Taeyong, Doyoung, Yuta, Jaehyun, Win Win, Mark, and Haechan. The number 127 represents the longitude coordinates of Seoul, South Korea. NCT 127 made their debut in July last year with a mini album titled NCT #127. While the title track of that first album, “Firetruck,” was a lot of fun, it was their second mini album, Limitless, (released digitally on January 6, 2017, and physically on January 9, 2017) which really solidified my love of this group. Of course this album didn’t just rank high on my personal list of favorites, the new album scored the No.1 spot on Billboard’s World Albums Chart upon its release. Not bad for a rookie group, don’t ya think?
I’m not really sure how anyone could not know ZION.T but for those who may not be familiar with him and his work, he is a Korean hip-hop and R&B solo artist under The Black Label, a subsidiary label of YG Entertainment. He has released one studio album, Red Light (2013), and two EPs, Mirrorball(2013) and OO (2017). His first single, “Click Me,” featuring Dok2, was released in April 2011. In 2014, he promoted the digital single “Yanghwa BRDG,” which became a hit and contributed to his rising mainstream success as an artist in Korea’s music scene. His latest release, OO, landed second place on Billboard’s World Albums. The song “Complex,” featuring G-Dragon, was selected as Apple Music’s “Best of the Week.”
As I’m sure many of you already know, KCON 2017 NY will take place on June 23 and 24 at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. More details on tickets to the convention and to the concerts, including seating tiers, sections, and the programming schedule, can be found at www.kconusa.com along with all the latest KCON news. You can also follow @KCONUSA on Twitter, where additional artist line-up and other information are being announced, and join the conversation with #KCON17NY. Of course, you can always come back here to squee with me over all the latest KCON news or look me on social media. I’m pretty sure you know where to find me.