[Preview] Final round of 'K-POP Cover Dance Festival' In Korea [broadcast : MBC Nov,17 2011]

Korea’s top labels to create global K-pop concert brand ‘M-Live’

Entertainment company, CJ E&M has teamed up with some of the top Korean music labels in order to help improve the organization of their concerts and further spread the K-pop Hallyu wave throughout the world.

A conference titled ‘CJ E&M Global Concert brand M-Live K-POP Joint Advancement‘ took place on November 2nd in Seoul, and in attendance were CJ E&M representative Ahn Suk Jun, Star Empire‘s Shin Joo Hak, Amoeba Culture‘s Ko Kyung Min, FNC Music‘s Han Sung Ho, Jungle Entertainment‘s Cho Sun Oh, J Tune‘s Jo Dong Won, Cube Entertainment‘s Hong Seung Sung, as well as 6 other representatives from Korea’s top music agencies. The topic of discussion being the launch of a new global concert brand ‘M-Live‘.

Ahn Suk Jun of CJ E&M remarked, “This is the first global concert brand that we’re currently working on with the top names in the industry.”

“K-POP has well established in Korea as well as Asia, but now we want to effectively enlarge our territories in South America as well as the Middle East. We will continue to work on spreading the Hallyu wave world-wide. Our goals are that in the future, not only K-POP but Korean entertainment overall will be established globally.”

Agencies housing today’s hottest Hallyu stars also expressed their anticipation for K-pop’s global advancement though ‘M-Live’.

Ko Kyung Min representing Amoeba Culture and the home of Dynamic Duo & Supreme Teamremarked, “We talk a lot about this with Dynamic Duo but America’s hip hop focuses on rhythm and beat, while Korean hip hop focuses more on the melody… America is now changing their hip hop, incorporating more melodies into their music and because this is something we have been doing all this time, Korean hip hop music will have more of a competitive edge. We believe M-Live will do positive things, and we are thrilled to be a part of the team.”

Han Sung Ho representing FNC Music, the home of FT Island & CN BLUE stated, “Europe is the birthplace & mecca for band music and it is honestly a bit intimidating but we have good expectations for our bands. As long as we express our own unique colors, I think we will see good results.”

Hong Seung Sung, representative for Cube Entertainment, home to B2ST, 4minute, and G.NA along with Shin Ju Hak, representative for Star Empire, home to ZE:A and Nine Muses shared some of the advantages on performing overseas with M-Live.

Representative Hong stated, “We have done a lot of shows like this before, but we never had enough information about the local community, and we ran into a lot of problems. It’s advantageous for us to partner with a large enterprise when we try to go overseas, it will be much more organized and effective.”

Representative Shin remarked, “We definitely run into issues overseas. When artists travel to perform in other countries, we don’t have any accurate information and sometimes the local performance organizers are nowhere to be found, mid-performance. I think working with CJ E&M should alleviate these sorts of problems.”

M-Live’s first project is Star Empire’s Nine Muses and Seo In Young performing overseas in the Middle East. The two teams will be performing in United Arab Emirates on the 9th and 10th.

Cube Entertainment’s 4minute, B2ST and G.NA will be performing at the ‘2011 United Cube Concert in Brazil‘ to take place in Sao Paulo.

And next month, Jungle Entertainment’s Tiger JK, Yoon Mirae as well as other Jungle artists will be putting on a ‘Jungle Entertainment Label Show‘ in Los Angeles, California. In the new year, Amoeba Culture’s Dyanmic Duo will perform as a special guest at a performance by a popular hip hop star in Seattle.

FNC’s FT Island and CN BLUE plan on traveling to England or France next year as well, and J Tune Media’s MBLAQ are planning their Japan & Asia Tour.

cr: allkpop

Final round of ‘K-POP Cover Dance Festival’ to be held in Korea on October 3rd

After touring the world and witnessing some great acts from many international fans, the ‘K-POP Cover Dance Festival’ will be holding its final round on October 3rd at the Gyeongju Indoor Stadium.

The show kicked off in June with 1,700 applicants from 64 countries during the 1st preliminary online round. Starting from September 6th, the second round was held all over the world with idol stars flying out to different countries to act as guest judges. SHINee travelled to Russia, MBLAQ went to Brazil, and f(x) and miss A flew over to L.A. Meanwhile, KARA and T-ara stepped into Japan, 2PM went to Thailand, and Spain got a visit from B2ST. Overall, the idols help picked 66 contestants from 10 different countries to compete in the final round in Korea.

The final contestants from the second round were invited to Korea on September 28th for a 7-night, 8-day trip that included seats to a Korean Cultural Performance, a meeting with Hallyu stars, a tour of Korea’s historical landmarks in Gyeongju, and for the final winner of the show – the chance to perform at the Hallyu Dream Concert.

‘K-Pop Cover Dance Festival’ is a show held in commemoration of ‘2011 Visiting Korea Year’, and is aired every Thursday night through MBC.

cr: allkpop

B2ST cancels activities in Japan and returns to Korea due to visa issues

Cube Entertainment has just revealed to allkpop that B2ST was unable to enter Japan due to problems with their visas. Consequently, their upcoming promotions have been canceled and they’ve returned to Korea.

On the morning of August 16th, B2ST arrived at Japan’s Haneda Airport. However, they couldn’t pass through customs and were put on standby for over eight hours. Afterwards, they cleared their planned schedules and boarded a plane back to Korea at 8:00.

A representative from Cube Entertainment stated, “Universal Music (B2ST’s Japanese label) is responsible for the distribution of B2ST’s music in Japan. We definitely corresponded with them about the schedule and visa matters. We were even informed in advance that there were no problems.”

Originally, B2ST was going to promote their first album ‘SO BEAST’, which was fully released in Japan on the 10th, before returning to Korea.

B2ST was also going to participate in a surprise event and attend the premiere of Hollywood blockbuster “Shanghai“ since the movie was using their song “Fiction“ in its promotions.

Cube Entertainment said, “Regarding the standby situation at the airport, we are currently asking the Japanese label about the exact problem and trying to understand the details. From now on, we promise thorough preparations to prevent future problems in B2ST’s Japanese activities.”

cr: allkpop

B2ST represents Korea at the ‘MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia 2011′

On July 24th, B2ST represented South Korea at the ‘MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia 2011‘ event, held at the i-City in Malaysia.

Fans flooded the airport to meet B2ST’s arrival and welcomed the boys by singing their hit tracks like “Shock“, “Soom“, "Fiction",  "Special",  “Beautiful“, and “Rainy Days“. Over 15,000 fans from all over the world gathered to catch the boys perform live alongside other performance guests.

Social networking websites were hot with live updates on B2ST’s performances, so much to the point that B2ST was ranked at the top of every search engine several times throughout the night. This was their second invitation as representatives of Korea.

Performances from the 2 hour and 30 minute long event will be broadcast through 160 different broadcast networks on August 19th from 9 PM KST to 11:30 PM KST.

B2ST is also currently on their Asian fan meet tour and are also looking forward to their ‘United Cube‘ concert on August 14th.

cr: allkpop