Targeting Taiwan’s unprecedented craze for South Korean culture and pop artists, 15 pop groups and singers from South Korea have taken turns holding packed concerts around the country this year, raking in hundreds of millions of New Taiwan dollars — in just four months.
Spearheading the series of fast-selling events, 12-member boy band Super Junior staged a concert at the Taipei Arena in February, followed by 14 bands and singers who came to Taiwan to hold “big-bucks events.”
The South Korean performers have generated NT$400 million (US$13.49 million) since February, statistics showed.
Photo: Pan Shao-tang, Taipei Times
Earning the most money were the four concerts staged by Super Junior at the Taipei Arena from Feb. 2 to Feb. 5, which generated an estimated NT$151 million and attracted more than 40,000 -Taiwanese fans over the four days, observers said.
Coming next was the SM Town concert at the Hsinchu County Stadium on June 9 — an annual tour concert held by SM Entertainment, the country’s largest record label.
That included 46 South Korean pop artists, including Super Junior, five-member girl band the Wonder Girls, pop singer BoA and duo band Tong Vfang Xien Qi, who performed a joint concert.
The event attracted 28,000 fans, the highest amount ever recorded for a single concert by South Korean singers, and raked in NT$117.6 million.
A concert by four-man rock band CNBLUE in Taipei on Feb. 28 was in third place in terms of earnings, making about NT$27 million for the newly established band after selling out all 8,000 tickets, some priced as high as NT$5,600, in 13 minutes.
Rounding out the top five most profitable events were concerts by five-member boy band Five Treasure Island, or FT Island, in Taipei on May 26, which earned NT$23 million, and a concert by six-member boy band BEAST in late March, which earned about NT$20 million.
Aside from concerts, events in which South Korean pop stars meet and greet their fans are also highly profitable, with Kim Hyun-joong, leader of boy band SS501, and three-member boy band JYJ both reportedly earning tens of millions of New Taiwan dollars through such events.
Other popular bands and artists profiting off these events, including five-member girl band KARA, five-member boy band SHINee, six-member boy band Teen Top and Kim Kyu-jong, a member of the boy band SS501, all earned large sums of money, ranging from NT$3 million to NT$5 million, from -Taiwanese fans.
Industry insiders say they expect Taiwan’s enthusiasm for anything South Korean to continue through the second half of this year, with more South Korean pop stars expected, such as celebrated actors Song Joong-ki and Jang Keun-suk, five-member boy band MBLAQ and five-member boy band BIGBANG.
Translated by Stacy Hsu, staff writer
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS