South Korea’s Mnet Asian Music Awards to bypass Korea again
The major annual South Korean music awards ceremony, the Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA), may take place in three different places again in December – Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ―– but still not in Korea.
Organisers of the event are now busy checking artists’ schedules, according to a report by the Ilgan Sports news outlet on Wednesday, citing an industry source.
MAMA dubs itself “Asia’s No 1 Music Festival’ with the hottest Korean celebrities – such as the K-pop groups EXO, BTS and TWICE and actors Song Joong-ki and Park Bo-gum―– appearing as performers and presenters.
However, it has upset many Korean fans for not holding the ceremony in South Korea, even though most of the awards are won by Korean performers.
MAMA is the flagship music awards ceremony hosted by entertainment giant CJ E&M, through its music channel Mnet.
It first took place in 1999 under the name “Mnet Music Video Festival”.
It changed its name to the current one in 2009.
The ceremony has been held in different Asian locations outside Korea for the past eight years.
Last year’s event, held from November 25 to December 1, was the first to be staged in three different places, Vietnam, Japan and Hong Kong.
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This article was written by Dong Sun-hwa for The Korea Times.
Annual event hosted by Korea celebrities, which will take place in December in Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong, has not been hosted in home nation for years