It’s set to be another mega year for K-pop in London. While South Korea itself is embroiled in political turmoil, with another president dramatically impeached following last year’s martial law snafu, the country’s greatest soft power asset continues to go from global strength to strength. Several megastar groups with vast fan bases are returning to headline stadium shows in the capital.
Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, is a well-documented global phenomenon where South Korea’s cultural exports have become widely popular in other countries. From K-beauty to K-dramas, we can’t get enough of it. There was even an exhibition at London’s V&A museum in 2022 dedicated to showcasing the phenomenon. K-pop, the catchy blend of music styles performed by extraordinarily talented groups of young men and women, often produced in hothouse bootcamps, dominates charts around the world.
“It is exciting to see the long-term impact of our exhibition through the rising number of K-pop acts, big and small, in the UK but also through their first-time inclusion in major festivals,” Rosalie Kim, lead curator of Hallyu! The Korean Wave. “K-pop dance classes are also reported to keep growing up and down the country and BBC produced various contents on K-pop, from major series like Made in Korea: The K-pop Experience to smaller features on their regular programmes like The One Show.”
How K-pop conquered London
K-pop mania first came to London proper in 2018, when BTS made their UK debut, playing two sold-out shows at the O2 to a crowd of screaming fans waving £45 lightsticks (a collectible light-up wand specific to each band). Formed in 2013, the seven-member idol group was one of the first to find mainstream success outside of their home country.
By 2020, they were topping the UK music charts and set to return to the capital to play Twickenham for another pair of sold-out shows. Covid put paid to the tour, and in 2022 BTS announced they were going on hiatus to focus on solo careers – and enrol in South Korea’s mandatory military service. Whether they will re-form later this year is the subject of heated fan speculation.
Blackpink was the next K-pop band to take London by storm. The four-part girl group also sold out the O2 in 2022, with their fans – who call themselves Blinks – queuing for hours to buy coveted merchandise (and more lightsticks) and extra security having to be called in to manage the crowds.
Blackpink returned the next year to perform at BST Hyde Park to a crowd of 65,000, making them the first K-pop group to headline a UK music festival (boy band Seventeen became the first K-pop group to perform at Glastonbury in 2024). Despite being the most-streamed girl group on music platform Spotify – and receiving honorary MBEs from King Charles – they split at the end that year to focus on their solo careers. But there are fervent rumours that they too could reform and begin a world tour in 2025.
BTS and Blackpink may be on the cusp of their comebacks, but there are plenty of other K-pop groups regularly coming to London now the path has been forged. Promoters and bookers have clearly taken notice of how K-pop’s slick production values, incredible dance routines and genre-bending mashups inspire legions of idol-worshipping fans to sell out huge venues.
2025 started off strong for London’s K-pop fans with Ateez making a stop on their current world tour at The O2 on January 27 and 28. Ateez, made up of members Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Yunho, Yeosang, San, Mingi, Wooyoung and Jongho, is a collapsing of the phrase “A Teenager Z”. They built a dedicated fan base before they’d even dropped their first single in 2018. Their fans, the Atiny’s (a portmanteau of Ateez and destiny), turned out en masse to support the Towards the Light: A Will to Power tour.
Hyperpop girl-group Aespa are playing the OVO Arena Wembley on March 2. “I am a fan of K-pop and look forward to all the acts to come in the UK, including Aespa,” says Kim. Aespa members Ningning, Karina, Winter, and Giselle have been smashing records since 2020, when their music video for their single Black Mamba became the fastest to reach 100 million views on YouTube for a K-pop debut.
The group, whose name means “face another self and experience a new world through an avatar”, have a metaverse-inflected bent complete with a lore-filled backstory where their avatars defeat evil in virtual realms. Their fans are called Mys, which means “my dearest friends” in Aespa’s avatar land. In 2021, Aespa became the first K-pop group to become the face of a European fashion house in a contract with Givenchy. They already made their London debut in 2023 at the O2.
Stray Kids are also back in London to play Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in July on their dominATE world tour, having headlined BST Hyde Park last year to a screaming crowd of delighted fans. The eight-part boy group – Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N – was booked to play Wembley in 2020, but their tour was one of the many casualties of covid. Stray Kids are known for an experimental music style that mixes EDM with heavy metal, dubstep, hip-hop and, of course, dance-pop. Their official fan group, Stay, has a reputation for fundraising for charitable causes, a popular activity in K-pop fandoms.
K-pop world tours can have an extended half-life, too. Five-member girl group (G)I-dle kicked off the European leg of their world tour at Wembley last year. Now a movie version of Miyeon, Minnie, Soyeon, Yuqi, and Shuhua’s Seoul performance is being released in London cinemas, much like Taylor Swift’s Eras tour or Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour.
With so much appetite for K-pop in the capital, a secondary economy has sprung up to cater to fans. There are K-pop dance classes and dedicated shops selling merchandise. And there are also K-pop festivals, although these have something of a chequered history with London.
In 2022, a K-pop festival organised by Live Company Group subsidiary K-pop Lux for November 2022 was cancelled at the last minute. Organisers said it was stopped out of respect for the Itaewon crowd crush disaster. But fans who attended the festival’s iterations in Frankfurt had been vocal about their disappointment in the event, with curtailed acts, vast queues and a concerning lack of drinking water availability. K-pop Lux was wound up as a going concern last year.
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Another K-pop festival, Made in Korea (MIK), could return to London in June. Magic Sound, the company behind MIK, has applied to Brent Council to host 15,000 K-pop fans in Northwick Park for a three-day bonanza of merch, food and performances. MIK first ran in 2022 at Southwark Park, although residents voiced their displeasure over the noise and disruption. Plans for a 2023 edition of the festival were scrapped after escalating costs and low ticket sales. Brent Council is due to rule on the application on February 4, and there have already been dozens of objections lodged by locals.
Not everyone is a fan of K-pop in their back garden, it seems. But music NIMBYs aside, the Korean Wave shows no sign of abating on London’s shores. Get your lightsticks and finger hearts ready for the 2025 K-pop supremacy.
