

By Kang Aa-young







KCON 2018 LA, the three-day global K-pop music and culture festival in Los Angeles, wrapped up Sunday, attracting tens of thousands of avid fans from all across the world.







A crowd of 95,000 people gathered for this year's KCON event held Friday to Sunday at the Los Angeles Convention Center and Staples Center, according to the organizer, Monday.





For this year's KCON event, the organizer picked "KLUB KCON" as a catchphrase. This means a combined K-pop music genre, including K-hip-hop and K-EDM. On Saturday and Sunday events, 19 famous Korean acts, including K-pop band TWICE and Wanna One and female singer Ailee, hit the stage. Young fans tested K-beauty products and tried Korean food on the sidelines of the K-pop event.





K-pop, marked by Psy's 2012 mega-hit "Gangnam Style," continues its popularity overseas. This past May, the seven-member boy band BTS topped the list of the Billboard 200 album chart with "Love Yourself: Tear."





KCON, started in 2012 in Irvine, California, has since positioned itself as one of the most symbolic Korean wave platforms and has been held in 19 cities throughout the world.





When combining the number of attendees at the KCON event in New York in June with that of the latest one, this year's KCON events drew 147,000 fans in North America. About 93 percent of the attendees traveled to LA from other regions for the latest event, with teens and those in their 20s being the main group, the organizers said.





CJ ENM will expand KCON into Thailand in September to play to the enthusiastic fans there.



