As K-pop continues to cement its place in the global mainstream, capitalizing on the interest in the form of music festivals has become increasingly more common. Most of the K-pop festivals that have been announced over the last few years never went ahead due to various logistical hurdles.
Hello82, the K-pop entertainment company headquartered in Los Angeles, aims to plant a flag in the market with their upcoming 82World. The two-day festival, set to take place Oct. 17 and Oct. 18 at L.A. State Historic Park, has been years in the making, according to Hello82 co-founder Sang H. Cho.
The COO previously worked at Korean entertainment giant CJ ENM, responsible for K-pop convention turned festival KCON, and was one of the key members working to make that first KCON happen back in 2012. “The event has become its own thing. It’s so big and it’s very polished, very well produced and managed,” Cho says.
But he and the team at Hello82 were looking to create something that felt grassroots and community-focused like the early years of K-pop’s expansion into the U.S. “We thought an outdoor festival would be the better format for us. I’m not saying that’s good for everybody, but for us it was better,” says Cho. “We actually were lucky enough to also recruit over a number of people who worked on KCON throughout the years to help us with the event.”
Over the last several years, Hello82 has evolved from a way to help artists albums distribute in the U.S. — while seeing K-pop sections on the shelves of Target or Walmart or Barnes and Noble is now the norm, it’s still a very recent change — to a fan-forward company, holding events with artists. Last year, the company dipped its toes into the live events world, serving as the promoter for boy group P1Harmony’s tour — the boy group is slated to perform Saturday at 82World.
While it’s common for long-standing festivals like Coachella or Lollapalooza to sell tickets ahead of lineups, it’s rare for a first-time festival. But last year, during Black Friday, Hello82 put up the first batch of tickets for the festival, promising K-pop acts and events, sans any artists officially attached or a specific date. “We just wanted to put a stake in the ground,” says Cho.
“We sold too many tickets in the first two hours,” he says. “We quickly had to stop, but also that gave us the encouragement — OK, people are interested in this.”
Cho says they had already had soft commitments and interest from artists at the time of that first on-sale date. Unsurprisingly, the company was working to solve the puzzle of several artists schedules. Fans had speculated, as Cho’s quick to point out, a few artists that the company has had long-standing relationships with — ATEEZ, Sunday’s headliner, and P1Harmony, Saturday’s headliner — among them. Saturday’s lineup also features a slew of rising K-pop (and J-pop) talent in Ampers&one, Be:First, Cosmosy, Girlset, Xikers and 8Turn.
Sunday will be entirely taken up by ATEEZ, the eight-member boy group from KQ Entertainment. The group currently sits near-top of the pack amongst K-pop acts promoting in the U.S. today, topping the Billboard albums charts multiple times. The group is slated to perform in the evening, with the day-time programming taken up by ATEEZ DJ sets, dance workshops for their music, trivia and smaller breakout programming with members of the group. The group, one of the only K-pop acts not hailing from a major Korean label to the success they have globally, has long partnered with Hello82 for fan events, album promotions and special engagements.
As the company says, while a first time festival is hardly a “super profitable thing,” the commitment was largely due to continuing to service their fanbase. “It’s great for our business overall because we don’t look at each piece of business separately,” says Cho. “We always feel like they work together.”
It’s become increasingly tough to nail down artist visas in the last few years, and the delay in that process has caused the cancellations and rescheduling of other tours and festivals in the world of K-pop. “It just takes more time and preparation. Fortunately, most of the artists, [if not] all of them have been in the U.S. before, whether doing promotional stuff or shows and tours,” Cho says.
For this weekend’s festival, Hello82 promises a slew of activities taking place at its two-stage grounds. The hope is to replicate intimate fan-artist experiences that the company has been putting on at their space for an outdoor festival setting. The crew has been loading in since Monday, and the team says there’s plenty of surprises they’ve yet to announce, although they’re hoping for some grace as they get their bearings on year one. Olivia Rodrigo’s recent Daisy Chain Fields, despite some long food and shuttle lines, was a prime example of how organized a first-year festival can be.
For Cho and Hello82, the goal is to make 82World an annual event; it is not a one-off experience. While they can’t disclose where just yet, the company is taking the festival to Europe in 2027.