Melon Music Awards goes two days for the first time — MMA2026 set for Nov. 14–15 at Gocheok Sky Dome

The 18th Melon Music Awards will be held on November 14–15 at Seoul's Gocheok Sky Dome. It's the first two-day run since the show launched in 2005.

MMA2026 carries the slogan K-POP CONNECT: The New Pulse, built around a core keyword of "Connect." Kakao Entertainment, which operates Melon, said the two-day format was chosen to accommodate more artists and fans at what it describes as K-pop's largest-scale festival.

The show will also fold in data from the newly launched Global-K Chart, which went live on June 1. The chart aggregates streaming usage and fandom activity from three platforms: Melon in South Korea, Tencent Music in China, and Line Music in Japan. Some award categories at MMA2026 will be linked to the chart's rankings. Which categories and how the data will be weighted will be announced later.

Pre-show activities are planned, including TOP10 voting and category-specific fan voting ahead of the November dates.

"MMA is the largest K-pop festival completed through data accumulated by Melon over 22 years and fans' sincere participation," a Melon official said. The two-day format and Global-K Chart tie-in are meant to make MMA "an awards ceremony created together by K-pop fans worldwide."

MMA winners are selected through a combination of Melon streaming data, fan voting, and expert judging. (Twenty-one editions in and they're still adding new levers — the Global-K Chart linkage is the biggest structural change announced so far for this cycle.)