The MAMA Awards, one of K-pop's biggest year-end music events, will step outside its traditional in-venue ceremony format this year by launching a fan festival across its host city of Osaka and featuring collaboration stages with contemporary art, film and animation, organizers said Thursday.
This year's edition will be held on Nov. 20 and 21 at Kyocera Dome Osaka in Japan under the concept "A Music Interstellar," they added.
Regarding this year's theme, Yoon Shin-hye, head of CJ ENM's music cable channel Mnet, said it is based on the concept that "audiences freely swim between stars within a 'music interstellar' that transcends time, space, imagination and reality, encountering unexpected excitement and the dazzling power of music."
Aligned with this concept, the event will launch the MAMA Fan Festa starting this year to strengthen online and offline touchpoints with global fans alongside the main ceremony.
The fan festival will run from Nov. 9 to 21 across various locations in Osaka, including Kyocera Dome Osaka, Midosuji Street and Namba Square, as well as online via Mnet Plus.
Park Chan-uk, head of the company's live entertainment business section, described the event as "an online and offline festival where K-pop fans can create greater enjoyment through various quest experiences."
He added that the festival was planned "to create a space where fans do not simply stop at watching the ceremony, but participate, share what they like and build new relationships with other fans they meet for the first time."
Unlike previous ceremonies that separated fan-voted categories and main prize categories across the two days, this year's MAMA Awards will be divided into artist and performance categories. The first day will present the Fans' Choice and singer category awards, while the second day will feature the Best Song Top 10 and genre-specific awards.
The performer lineup includes BIGBANG, Cortis, Enhypen, Zerobaseone, NCT Wish, Treasure, Ive, Le Sserafim, 2NE1 member CL, TWICE's Nayeon, Babymonster, Rescene, Allday Project, Illit and Hearts2Hearts. Additionally, veteran male duo Panic will stage a collaboration performance with Cortis' Martin and Seonghyeon, Woodz, Zerobaseone's Kim Tae-rae, Allday Project's Woochan and Hearts2Hearts' Yuha.
Yoon also announced a collaboration between K-pop and South Korean contemporary art master Lee Bae.
"It visually expresses the message that art and music take on new meaning within the cycle of time," she said. "I hope K-pop fans around the world will newly discover the value of Korean art through this show."
The event will also feature a cinematic stage bringing together K-pop group Enhypen and the film "Dune: Part Three," which is slated for release in December. In addition, the popular Korean animated TV series "Dooly the Little Dinosaur" and legendary K-pop group BIGBANG will present an unexpected collaboration stage.
Actor Park Bo-gum will return as the show's host, also serving as the first-ever ambassador for MAMA Awards.
"As the MAMA ambassador, he will serve as a storyteller and a guide traveling through the music universe together," Yoon said, noting that the actor has accompanied the awards show through many of its milestone years.
Harry H.K. Shin, head of the music entertainment division at the company, said the awards show has always focused on creating iconic K-pop moments rather than simply expanding its scale.
"Although this is an event in its 27th year, we will work hard with the mindset of a rookie artist participating in the event for the first time to create the best K-pop awards ceremony together with artists and fans," he said. (Yonhap)
