HYBE, SME, JYPE, YGE unite for music festival aimed at surpassing Coachella, but actually sounds sorta like a reskinned KCON

South Korea’s Big 4 entertainment companies — HYBE, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, YG Entertainment — have announced that they’re joining hands with the goal of creating a global music festival. The quartet have reportedly submitted a merger notice to the Fair Trade Commission to establish the venture.

The joint venture is expected to be established with equal investment from the four companies, though details regarding leadership and governance structures have yet to be finalized.
It aims to focus on concert planning, to launch a large-scale music festival, tentatively titled “Fanomenon,” in South Korea in 2027. The event would feature artists from all four agencies.

Most notable to me is that their ambitions are apparently surpassing Coachella, but while this would hypothetically debut in South Korea, the goal would be to expand it to a global touring event. That very much doesn’t sound like Coachella, and very much sounds a lot more like a supercharged KCON that the companies reap all the profits from.

Then again, this is still in the very beginning stages, and given how quickly things evolve or devolve you should very much put this to the very back of your K-pop headspace until even any details start to come out about this actually happening.