BLACKPINK

The explosion in interest in Korean culture has made K-pop a big deal in the west – so why aren't its artists getting booked for UK festivals?

There’s even [an exhibition at the V&A on the rise of Korean culture](https://www.nme.com/news/music/va-museum-hallyu-korean-wave-exhibition-curator-interview-3314081) as we speak. [BLACKPINK once again making history at London’s BST Hyde Park](https://www.nme.com/news/music/blackpink-to-headline-bst-hyde-park-london-in-2023-buy-tickets-3333370) – while recent festival seasons have been sorely lacking in the K-pop department. [Reading & Leeds](https://www.nme.com/festivals/reading-and-leeds) surveyed who fans wanted to see at the events in 2023. At the very least, it suggests big festival organisers are starting to sit up and consider K-pop’s place on their bills – fingers crossed those considerations turn into reality very soon. At the time, their booking felt like a momentous feat and a signal that a tide was turning – interest in K-pop was rapidly rising in the west, but it was still flying under the radar almost a decade after [PSY](https://www.nme.com/artists/psy)’s [‘Gangnam Style’](https://www.nme.com/features/psy-gangnam-style-10-years-anniversary-k-pop-impact-3269841) became a global phenomenon. When a mocked-up version of this year’s Coachella line-up circulated online last week, its proposition that boyband [CIX](https://www.nme.com/artists/cix) – popular but not one of the biggest acts to make an impact outside of Korea – could have been booked by the festival wasn’t surprising (alas, the rumour was too good to be true). Leaving these artists siloed off into K-pop-only festivals might provide fun opportunities to enjoy a healthy dose of the scene but, if those are the UK’s only offerings, aren’t hugely in the spirit of modern music consumption. Performing on [Coachella](https://www.nme.com/festivals/coachella)’s Sahara stage in 2019, the powerhouse group became the first female K-pop act to appear at the festival ( [and proved they deserved such a title](https://www.nme.com/reviews/blackpink-coachella-2019-k-pop-review-2476248)). British festivals aren’t massively off-the-mark regarding diversity, but it seems strange that we haven’t been quite as eager to throw K-pop into our celebratory melting pot thus far. Where the likes of Coachella have been proactive and open-minded in embracing Korean artists’ increasing popularity, Britain is lagging far behind. [BTS](https://www.nme.com/artists/bts) rapper [J-hope](https://www.nme.com/artists/j-hope) became [the first South Korean artist to headline a main stage at a US festival](https://www.nme.com/news/music/j-hope-of-bts-becomes-first-south-korean-artist-to-headline-lollapalooza-3280428) with [his triumphant Lollapalooza performance](https://www.nme.com/festivals/j-hope-lollapalooza-2022-headline-review-bts-3280802) while a day prior, [Tomorrow X Together became the first K-pop artist to appear at the Chicago festival](https://www.nme.com/news/music/tomorrow-x-together-lollapalooza-first-k-pop-act-3280162). According to Duolingo, in 2021, Korean was the second-fastest-growing language on the app.