Will K-Pop Strategy Save Weak Seat Sales for Asian Games

Seoul (PNA/Xinhua) — There is no other events that can gather such an unprecedented scale of South Korean top pop stars in one night.

With the theme “4.5 billion Asians’ dream, Asia as one”, the opening ceremony of the 17th Incheon Asian Games will be developed into a stage to export Korean pop culture to the world. Many K-Pop stars, such as JYJ, EXO, Bigbang, CNBlue, SISTAR and PSY will light up the ceremonies.

Artistic director Jang Jin said the opening ceremony will emphasize on “story-telling”. The main part of the opening performance is designed to tell a story composed of four sections: from”Asia long time ago,” “Asia meeting through the sea,” “Asia as family and friends” and to “Asia as one and future joining with today.”

The story tellers will be the ones who have strong appeal among Korean TV dramas and movies. South Korean actor Chang Dong-Geon will narrate the first story, while Kim Soo-hyun, a prominent actor who played in the South Korean alien romance drama “My Love From the Star”, will appear through a video during the second stage, according to the organizers.

South Korean pop singer group JYJ, also the PR ambassadors of the Incheon Asian Games, will sing “Only One”, the theme song of the Incheon Asian Games, as the torch is lit.

Chinese pianist Lang Lang’s collaboration performance with these K-Pop stars will be another highlights set by the organizers to attract Chinese tourists.

The 2014 Incheon Asian Games Organizing Committee said it bets on K-pop to attract overseas audiences. Large-scale road shows of Asian Games have been held across Asia in the past years, attended by the Asian Games PR ambassador, South Korean actor Hyun Bin and JYJ.

Hyun Bin, famous for his role in TV drama “Secret Garden”, has made frequent appearance in China recently to promote seat sales and the “Smart Torch Relay” app. JYJ also introduced the Asian Games amid their world tour concert.

However, it seems that the K-pop strategy has not worked effectively as expected. Total sales of the tickets for the opening ceremony are only 34 percent, although the Asian games is only two weeks away.

Comparing with the opening gala, the organizers are more worried about the seat sales for general competitions, which performed even worse. As of Sept. 3, the sales of the tickets for the general competition were only 27 percent, according to the organizer.

The best sales of the competition section are baseball, football, swimming and badminton. “Marine Boy”Park Tae-hwan, the first Korean swimmer to win gold in the Olympics, Rhythmic gymnast Son Yeon-jae, who won bronze in Guangzhou and badminton player Lee Yongdea, have generated most of the seat sales.

South Korea’s traditional strongholds of shooting, archery and taekwondo have also achieved a high rate of seat sales. South Korea’s Joongang Daily reported that the country aims to claim 48 gold medals in seven core sports — shooting, fencing, archery, taekwondo, tennis, bowling and golf.

Except for these popular sports events, seat sales for events that Korean people have fewer interests are no more than 10 percent. Although the track and field events will be held at the main stadium with 62,000 seats, the rate of seat sales were less than 2 percent. A joke was made by local media to describe the embarrassing phenomenon: people may hear the bird’s singing as the audiences are too little during the competition.

As the Asian Games is drawing near, the organizers will pay more attention to boost domestic demands, Son Cheon-taik, Sports Deputy Secretary General of IAGOC, told Xinhua.

Local media reported that small and medium-sized enterprises in Incheon have planned to buy some tickets of general competition to dispatch to foreign employees and students as gifts, which were warmly welcomed by the organizers.

On the Gwanghwamun square, the center of Seoul, a large screen are playing the promotion video of the Asian games day and night. But people seldom stop to watch it, just pass by quickly without a glimpse. (PNA/Xinhua) FPV/UTB