Four giants of the South Korean entertainment industry — YG Entertainment (manages Blackpink), HYBE Corporation (manages BTS, TXT and Le Sserafim), JYP Entertainment (manages Twice and Stray Kids) and SM Entertainment (manages Aespa and NCT) — are coming together to launch a Coachella-level music festival in the country.

As per South Korean media on Thursday, the powerhouses of K-pop have recently submitted a business combination report to the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), to lay out their joint venture to establish a large-scale musical festival by 2027.

Under the proposed initiative, the festival is expected to feature artists from all four agencies, a move that could significantly boost K-pop’s international presence, on an even wider scale.

The report further indicated that the agencies are looking forward to establishing a separate corporation, which will be solely focussed on organising the concert and producing the festival.

The ventures have already filed for merger notification with the FTC. Since HYBE is classified as a conglomerate and SM is part of the Kakao Group, the joint venture must undergo FTC review.

Tentatively referred to as Fanomenon, derived from Fan and Phenomenon, JYP founder Park Jin-young had already introduced the concept of the festival at its inaugural ceremony in Goyang last October.

Set to debut in December 2027, Park Ji-young said the festival is planned to expand into a global touring event across major cities worldwide from 2028 onward. The organisers aim to establish a world-class K-pop concert venue and create a global music festival that surpasses Coachella.

However, several followers of K-pop are disappointed with this new initiative, with many expressing their frustration over K-pop evolving into a monopoly market and burdening K-pop idols with more stress, besides their busy schedules.

“Nah, HYBE better to be out of it. They already promote their artist effectively better than everyone else. This is just a waste of time. They can send their artist to other music festivals with broadly different audiences. Why would y’all cave in & back to zero with this?” an X user wrote.

Lately, these four major agencies are under fire for intense internal power struggles, mismanagement of artists, alleged unfair trading, and poor consumer policies regarding merchandise.

Highlighting the issue, one X user wrote, “A K-pop festival bigger than Coachella sounds incredible until you remember these are the same 4 companies currently in legal battles with their own artists. Fix your houses first. Then build a festival.”

Another post reads, “No thanks, that hurts smaller companies. No one asked for this.”

Over the years, popular K-pop acts like Blackpink, ATEEZ, Aespa and Jackson Wang have established their global fame by performing at festivals like Coachella.