South Korea’s four biggest K-pop agencies — HYBE, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment — have established a joint venture to run Fanomenon, the government-backed K-pop festival scheduled for December 2027. Fanomenon Co. completed its registration at the Seoul Central District Court registry on Oct. 26, according to legal sources.
The new company launched with 4 billion won (about $3 million) in paid-in capital, of 800,000 common shares at 5,000 won each. Its articles of incorporation allow for up to 5 million shares, leaving room to raise up to 25 billion won. Its registered office is in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul.
Park Yun-suh, born in 1993 and formerly of HYBE and JYP Entertainment, will run the company as CEO and sole inside director. Each agency has placed one non-executive director on the board — Kim Jeong-jip from YG, Won Woo-hyun from SM, Yoon Han-gil from HYBE and Shin Hyun-guk from JYP — plus an auditor.
Fanomenon is scheduled to run Dec. 2-12, 2027, at Seoul Arena in Changdong and KINTEX in Goyang, combining K-pop concerts, a fandom awards ceremony and K-culture exhibitions. The joint venture will handle the festival’s planning, production and operation, and manage intellectual property, including the trademark.
The company’s stated business goes well beyond staging a festival. Its purpose clause covers operating and acquiring rights to performance venues, selling and brokering tickets, producing and distributing food, fashion and merchandise, investing in culture and entertainment, and licensing intellectual property.
The launch follows a dispute over the Fanomenon trademark, which JYP filed on its own shortly after the project was first announced. At a parliamentary audit on Oct. 7, J.Y. Park — who co-chairs the Presidential Committee on Popular Culture Exchange with Culture Minister Chae Hwi-young — said his team had registered the name at its own expense to keep others from taking it, and planned to transfer the rights once the project’s responsible entity was set up. On Oct. 22, the Culture Ministry signed a joint ownership agreement with JYP, and a revised contract submitted to the National Assembly on Oct. 23 reportedly splits the trademark rights 50-50 between the ministry and the joint venture.
No official statement was available. With the company registered and the trademark question settled, Fanomenon moves from a government-backed concept into a fully capitalized venture — and the December 2027 festival has a single entity in charge of delivering it.
