Tomorrowland, Big Hit and Lost Horizon have each announced virtual New Year’s Eve events to close a year of hugely successful livestreamed events.

Belgium EDM giant Tomorrowland has announced New Year’s Eve celebration ‘31.12.2020’, which will see more than 25 DJs perform across 27 time zones to usher in the new year.

The festival will start at 8 pm local time in all zones and will close at 3 am after performances from Armin van Buuren, CamelPhat, Charlotte de Witte, David Guetta, Diplo, Major Lazer, Martin Garrix, Snoop Dogg aka DJ Snoopadelic and more.

The festival will be hosted on Tomorrowland’s website and performances will be streamed from four stages in Naoz, a brand new digital entertainment venue in which “some of the festival’s most iconic themes” will feature.

Tomorrowland held its first-ever digital festival, Tomorrowland Around the World, in July and saw 1 million fans pay to attend – 150% more festivalgoers than usual.

K-pop superstars BTS are also expected to expand on the success of their 2020 virtual events, which have seen them break records and earn millions.

The group’s management Big Hit yesterday announced that artists from its roster would come together under one banner for the first time for a hybrid New Year’s Eve event.

Big Hit announced that artists from its roster would come together under one banner for the first time for NYE

The concert, presented by Weverse, will be livestreamed and limited seating will be available, in accordance with the government Covid-19 restrictions. If restrictions change, preventing the in-person aspect, the event will go fully digital.

Nu’est, Enhypen, Txt and Gfriend have already been confirmed for the event, with more line up announcements expected tomorrow (12 November).

BTS performed on New Year’s Eve last year, headlining Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest in New York’s Times Square alongside Post Malone, Sam Hunt and Alanis Morissette and more.

Lost Horizon, the VR music venue created by the team behind Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, will also be hosting a special New Year’s Eve event to end a season of virtual events in December.

The season will take place in VR event platform Sansar and will play host to DJs, underground acts and visual artists, before culminating with ‘Chasing Midnight’, a 24-hour global celebration on New Year’s Eve, taking in 12 time zones and 12 countdowns.

Lost Horizon launched its premiere festival in July, a four-stage event in Sansar featuring artists including Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim, Pete Tong, which reached 4.36m viewers, according to organisers.

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Big Hit Entertainment, home to K-pop superstars BTS, is launching ‘Learn Korean with BTS’, a series of videos dedicated to enabling global audiences to understand the band’s lyrics.

The release comes as many around the world are looking for new ways to pass the time, as they are confined to their homes or facing social restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Rolling out on fan community platform Weverse tomorrow (24 March), ‘Learn Korean with BTS’ consists of three-minute videos teaching simple Korean grammar and expressions.

The episodes will be aired a total of 30 times, with the first three three episodes released at 5 a.m. (GMT) on 24 March, followed by one episode released every Monday at 12 p.m. All episodes will be free for anyone who is registered on Weverse.

“With the recent popularity of K-pop, the demand for learning Korean is increasing greatly”

Professor Heo Yong of the Department of Korean Education at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and researchers at the Korean Language Content Institute (KOLCI) participated in the development of the learning programme.

Big Hit plans to expand the venture to include educational content for other artists on its roster in the future.

“With the recent popularity of K-pop and other Korean cultural contents, the demand for learning Korean is increasing greatly, so we are planning Korean education contents to improve our accessibility,” reads a Big Hit press statement.

“We hope that through learning Korean, global fans will be able to deeply empathise with the music of artists and enjoy a wide range of content.”

Big Hit works with artists including Tomorrow X Together and Lee Hyun.

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