A joint concert of virtual and human artists took place for the first time in South Korea. 

Isegye Festival: Virtual reality has become an unavoidable wave in Korean pop culture, spearheaded by virtual idol bands like “Isegye Idol” in the last two years. 

Debuted in 2021, the sextet of cartoon-like digital characters have released several hit songs coupled with easy-to-follow choreographies. With their second latest release, “Kidding”, landing on the Billboard global chart (excluding the United States) in August 2023, the band has garnered massive support from their fans – although their worlds of existence may not be the same. 

Virtual, but Not Online

Parable Entertainment, a web content start-up backed by networks of creators, including Isegye Idol, held a festival where human and digital artists come together to perform while incorporating traditional elements of the K-pop industry. 

Taking place in Incheon, South Korea, on September 23, the concert showcased a range of artists on stage, including K-pop artists like Kwon Eun-bi, H1-KEY, Zior Park, and PROWDMON, and of course, Isegye Idol as the headliner. The festival’s sponsors were LG Electronics, Korea Creative Content Agency, and Incheon Free Economic Zone, who had their own booths for promotions or video advertisements played between stage performances.

Like any other K-pop concert, concertgoers were supposed to book tickets to the festival. Over the three rounds of ticket release from August to September 2023, approximately 20,000 tickets were allegedly sold. Parable Entertainment said that 10,000 tickets for the festival were sold out within eight minutes during the first round.
With no designated seats, some dedicated fans stayed overnight outside the festival venue to enter early and watch their favourite virtual idols from the front row. Near the starting time, thousands of people crowded near the entrance gate, which caused two to three hours of wait to get into the festival park.

“My friends and I are huge fans of Isegye Idol,” a woman in her 20s told 4i Magazine when waiting in a queue to enter. “We couldn’t miss their first-ever performance on an offline stage.”

The entire performance of the festival was eight hours long; human artists led the first and second parts during the daytime, and the last part from 7:30 PM was for digital artists. Before the last part began, the festival displayed a dazzling, nocturnal drone show based on images of the starring virtual artists.

Between performances, there were short breaks for people to get snacks, buy official concert merch, take photos with Isegye Idol cardboard stands, or visit the sponsors’ booths inside the park. There also was a booth where people could see K-pop artists’ performances through virtual reality goggles and a photo booth to take pictures with the digital idols.

Attempt to Escape from 2-D Screens

Five virtual creator teams performed at the festival: Dokko Hyeji, HAKU0089, Secretto, Soopteunhun, and Isegye Idol. Except for the last two artists, the creators sang covers of well-known K-pop songs while dancing to them. Soopteunhun and Isegye Idol performed their own songs, and the latter band unveiled two new songs at the festival.

The performances were pre-recorded clips, not live behind the stage. The clips also had casual pep talk segments like saying hello to their fans or thanking them for coming all the way to the festival.

The performance videos were played on three big screens on stage. The audience could see a shot focused on an individual member from the two smaller screens on each side. The full shot was displayed on the largest screen in the middle. Some artists had human backup dancers on stage, adding livelier, out-of-the-screen elements to their 2-D performances. 

Still, some said that there is room for improvement in the future offline concerts of virtual creators. 

Kim Jang-hoon, a Korean singer who performed at the festival, said at the end of his performance that “it would have been great if virtual creators could interact with the audience live”. A YouTuber who left a vlog of the festival said in his video that the virtual artists’ performance felt like “watching a YouTube video of Isegye Idol from a bigger screen with thousands of people”.