This year's festival officially opened Friday (Aug. 14) at the Los Angeles Convention Center and Crypto.com Arena.
NCT 127 performs at KCON LA 2026 on Aug. 14, 2026.
Courtesy of CJ ENM
Los Angeles officially belongs to K-pop this weekend with KCON LA 2026, but the city has been deep in K-pop all week.
This year’s KCON festival officially opened Friday (Aug. 14) at the Los Angeles Convention Center and Crypto.com Arena. Under the theme “Walk in SOUL CITY,” a play on the South Korean capital, festival producer CJ ENM is stretching 2026’s convention across K-pop, K-beauty, K-food and K-story programming, including the first-ever Olive Young Festa K-Beauty Playground, which boasts 55 different Korean brands. But by the time doors opened on day one, the city had already been running on K-pop culture for days.
