BLINGONE performs at Times Square International Day of Peace Concert

BLINGONE hits Times Square on September 19

BLINGONE took the stage at the International Day of Peace Concert in Times Square on September 19 (local time), performing in the area between 46th and 47th streets. The group was invited as a global K-pop act.

Times Square has hosted PSY, who performed at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve there at the end of 2012, and BTS member Jungkook, among other Korean artists.

What BLINGONE actually is

BLINGONE is a K-pop group brand developed by World K-pop Center (CEO Park Sung-jin) through Click the Star, a global audition project targeting 32 countries. The model works like this: find K-pop talent in each country, apply Korea's training system, build country-specific BLINGONE units. Peru and China units have already debuted. Japan, Indonesia, India, and Turkey are next.

A World K-pop Center official said the Times Square performance showed "the possibility that K-POP talent discovered in each country can grow based on Korea's training system and stand on a world cultural stage."

BLINGONE NEXT and what's planned

Park Sung-jin, director Yu Dong-min, and World K-pop Missionary Group head Woo Won-jun called the New York stage "an important starting point for announcing BLINGONE NEXT's global expansion." They named future units that will lead P-pop (Peru), V-pop (Vietnam), M-pop (Mongolia), J-pop (Japan), and T-pop (Thailand) in major cities. The overall project frames itself as an "Entertainment UN" — or UN-POP — where music connects people across borders.

World K-pop Center plans to keep expanding BLINGONE NEXT as a global performance project. It's also building an overseas education network by linking existing Taekwondo academy networks abroad with its K-pop training system.