{"id":121560,"date":"2026-08-17T02:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T02:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/121560\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T02:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T02:44:12","slug":"k-pop-brings-the-crowd-k-beauty-keeps-them-exploring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/121560\/","title":{"rendered":"K-pop brings the crowd, K-beauty keeps them exploring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Olive Young makes US festival debut, turning KCON LA into Korean lifestyle showcase<\/p>\n

\"Customers Customers visit a concept store at Olive Young’s K-beauty festival held in Los Angeles on Saturday. (No Kyung-min\/The Korea Herald) <\/p>\n

Korea Herald correspondent<\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES \u2014 When CJ Group launched KCON in 2012 in Irvine, California, it drew roughly 10,000 fans to a modest bill of K-pop acts. Fourteen years on, and spanning 11 regions and 14 cities worldwide, the festival has pulled in a cumulative 2.35 million attendees, with last year’s Los Angeles edition alone drawing 125,000.<\/p>\n

“KCON isn’t only a concert, it’s a broader showcase of Korean lifestyle that has pulled the festival well past its original fan base,” said Park Chan-wook, head of CJ ENM’s convention division.<\/p>\n

The group’s beauty arm, Olive Young, put that vision fully into practice this year. Two US stores in, the company debuted its first US festival this month, transplanting Korean beauty culture onto American soil on a scale it had never attempted before.<\/p>\n

\"A A packed crowd cheers at the M Countdown Stage during KCON LA 2026, held Friday to Sunday at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. (CJ Group) <\/p>\n

This year’s festival, themed “The K-Beauty Playground Festival,” carries a clear intent, according to Lee Eun-jung, head of Olive Young’s brand creative center, to serve as a global crossroads where Olive Young, its partner brands and visitors from around the world can all converge.<\/p>\n

“The response we’ve seen for Olive Young in the US, our biggest beauty market, tells us this is a decisive chance, and we want to seize it,” Lee said. “Since 2019, Olive Young’s beauty festivals have drawn 80,000 attendees across 418 brands, with some products selling out in minutes. Average dwell time runs over four hours.”<\/p>\n

This year’s festival brought together 55 brands that stock Olive Young’s US stores. Its layout borrows Seoul’s geography through zones modeled on Korean shopping districts and their real-world identities, such as skin care in Seongsu, personalized solutions in Gangnam, makeup in Hongdae and wellness in Myeong-dong.<\/p>\n

\"Olive Olive Young Festa’s inaugural US edition was held Friday to Sunday at the Los Angeles Convention Center. (CJ Olive Young) <\/p>\n

For Kimberly, a 16-year-old American who found her way to Olive Young Festa through TikTok, the beauty booths held her attention a full day ahead of her attendance at a K-pop concert for her favorite band.<\/p>\n

“I love how interactive everything is here,” she said, referring to the variety of activities at brand booths. “Today I took part in a session at the Wellage booth and got some free samples. I’m planning to hit a few more before the day is out.”<\/p>\n

Korean content is not the only entry point into K-beauty. For Alyssa, 24, it was Kimberly who brought her into it. “This is my first time exploring K-beauty, and I want to really get into it,” she said. “I’ve mostly stuck to makeup brands before, so that’s what I’m hunting for today.”<\/p>\n

At the center of it all sits a full-scale Olive Young store, which drew in customers like Robert, a 33-year-old American who has come to KCON for years and was curious to see the beauty side for the first time.<\/p>\n

“I’ve attended the Bibigo event since 2023, and my favorite is the kimchi noodles,” he said. “This year I’m planning to shop at the Olive Young concept store, since I haven’t been to Olive Young’s US stores before.”<\/p>\n

The mockup store exists to let visitors wander much as they would through the brand’s actual US locations, sampling and testing as they go.<\/p>\n

Sections throughout take on different roles, among them a preview of a K-beauty display headed for roughly 580 Sephora stores nationwide, a table of trendy miniature products, and a ranking zone featuring bestsellers across many categories.<\/p>\n

The festival kept crowds moving throughout the day, with sessions running in parallel such as live skin care tutorials, personal color diagnostics and a stage spotlighting K-pop artists’ own skin care routines.<\/p>\n

In one corner, actor Park Eun-bin shared stories about Korean content with global fans at the K-story zone, while in another, a stage showcasing up-and-coming K-pop idols kept fans bobbing along even as they made their way through the beauty booths.<\/p>\n

“This festival is a platform that links K-beauty fans with K-culture fans more broadly,” Lee said. “We hope visitors take in this boundless energy, and that their interest in Olive Young deepens as we continue redefining the beauty experience.”<\/p>\n

\"Visitors Visitors wait in line to take part in interactive activities at brand booths at Olive Young Festa LA 2026, themed around Korean streets, on Saturday. (No Kyung-min\/The Korea Herald)
\n
minmin@heraldcorp.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olive Young makes US festival debut, turning KCON LA into Korean lifestyle showcase Customers visit a concept store…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[195,6406,35339,21775,63042],"class_list":["post-121560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-k-pop","tag-kcon","tag-kcon-la","tag-olive-young","tag-olive-young-festa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}