AEG strengthens K-pop ties with KQ Entertainment deal

AEG Presents has strengthened its commitment to the K-pop market by forming a strategic partnership with South Korean label and content company KQ Entertainment.

The move builds upon recent developments from the multinational promoting firm, which last year announced it would join forces with Korean AI metaverse firm Galaxy Corporation to further technological advancements in the touring and entertainment spaces, specifically around K-pop shows.

With this formal partnership, AEG will now lead producing and promoting breakout K-pop boy band ATEEZ’s worldwide tours. The eight-member group recently concluded the European leg of their Towards The Light: Will To Power trek, selling 180,000 tickets to sold-out crowds across the continent.

The AEG-promoted venture included milestones such as becoming the first K-pop artist to headline Paris’s La Défense Arena (cap. 40,000), and inaugural K-pop shows in cities like Lyon, Milan, and Zurich.

“We are always very keen to open up new arena markets for K-pop and we felt the perfect time to do this was on ATEEZ’s biggest-ever tour of Europe, and introduce Zurich and Milan which have both been resounding sold-out successes,” Simon Jones, AEG Presents’ SVP of international touring, said to IQ following the Swiss gig.

“The appetite for the genre shows no signs of slowing up.”

The recent tour’s North American leg sold 200,000 tickets and included sell-out shows at New York City’s Citi Field (41,800), two BMO Stadium (22,000) shows in Los Angeles, and Arlington’s Globe Life Field (40,300). ATEEZ will wrap up the tour with two Seoul shows at KSPO Dome (15,000) this weekend, 22-23 March.

Another AEG-supported K-pop project has reportedly stalled

AEG and KQ’s previous collaborations also include bringing the Billboard chart-topping band to Coachella last year as the first K-pop boy group to perform at the Goldenvoice festival, an AEG subsidiary. ATEEZ was also recently crowned K-Pop Artist of the Year at the iHeartRadio Music Awards.

This latest venture with KQ further cements AEG’s efforts in the K-pop realm. In 2022, AEG partnered with K-pop touring and marketing firm Powerhouse, which has worked with some of K-pop’s biggest stars such as BTS and Blackpink.

The two firms had been working in tandem since 2010 when they produced what’s remembered as “the first blast of K-pop in the US”.

AEG also promoted BLACKPINK’s 2022-23 Born Pink world tour, which became the most-attended concert tour by a K-pop girl group with 1.8 million attendees. The group headlined the AEG-backed BST Hyde Park in London in 2023, the first K-pop group to do so, with Stray Kids joining the headliner pool last summer.

Blackpink is due back out this year, with the Live Nation-promoted stadium tour stopping in Seoul, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, New York, Paris, Milan, Barcelona, London, and Tokyo.

But, another AEG-supported project, the 20,000-capacity, K-pop-specialised CJ LiveCity Arena in Goyang City, Seoul, has reportedly stalled.

Originally slated to open this year, the Goyang city government ended its agreement with CJ LiveCity — a subsidiary of media conglomerate CJ ENM — last year after the company halted construction in the spring of 2023 due to funding issues.

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