New Delhi event set for March 27-28 next year

Weverse India [Provided by Hybe]
Weverse India [Provided by Hybe]

Hybe has chosen India as the stage for its first overseas Weverse Con Festival — and the reasoning is straightforward. The answer lies in the structure of India's music market: a country with no shortage of K-pop listeners but virtually no large-scale concerts from top-tier acts, where streaming revenue is hard to come by yet the live music market grows every year. That reality dovetails neatly with Hybe's business plans, which have included more than a year of groundwork toward launching a local girl group. The festival lineup reflects the same logic.

Hybe India announced Friday the lineup for Weverse Con Festival India, set for March 27-28 next year in New Delhi.

Fifteen acts from South Korea and India will fill the two-day bill. Seven are Hybe artists — Tomorrow X Together (TXT), Enhypen, Le Sserafim, Lee Hyun, Beomgyu, Katseye's Lara and singer-songwriter Leah Raj. Three are K-pop solo artists from other agencies: Eric Nam, Hwasa and Dayoung. Five are Indian musicians. Tickets go on sale Oct. 30 exclusively through Indian ticketing platform BookMyShow. The venue has not yet been announced.

Fans aplenty, stages nowhere

About 178 million people stream music in India. Of those, only about 14.4 million — roughly 8 percent — are paying subscribers, according to a survey by EY and FICCI. The numbers tell the story of a market where audiences are vast but monetizing recorded music is difficult. The same survey found that India's music industry revenue grew from 53 billion rupees in 2024 to 59 billion rupees last year, yet paid streams accounted for less than 3 percent of total streaming.

Live events are a different story. According to BookMyShow, 30,687 live events were held across 319 Indian cities in 2024, and live entertainment spending rose 18 percent year on year. When Coldplay played Ahmedabad last January, more than 222,000 people attended over two nights. The market is one where weak recorded-music revenue is offset by rapidly expanding concert attendance and fandom spending.

K-pop had largely been left out of that boom. India's K-pop fandom commands a powerful online presence, yet acts like BTS and Blackpink have never staged a large concert in the country. Most K-pop shows that have reached India have been standalone concerts by smaller-agency groups or modest multi-act festivals. BTS's ongoing world tour "Arirang," which launched in April this year, has repeatedly added dates but India never made the list — leaving local fans to settle for live theater screenings.

Hybe has been working to fill that gap for more than a year. Last September it established an Indian subsidiary in Mumbai with paid-in capital of 870 million rupees ($9.27 million), making India its fifth overseas base after Japan, the United States, Latin America and China. In December it held its first official event in India — an exhibition tied to BTS member Jungkook's solo album. In March this year it launched auditions for a local girl group, drawing applicants from across India and from more than 1,650 cities in 116 countries, and later expanded the audition circuit to 23 cities. Casting is being led in part by professionals who worked on the audition project that produced American girl group Katseye.

Weverse Con Festival India is a natural extension of that effort. BookMyShow, which served as the ticketing partner for the auditions, is handling sales for the festival as well. The event is, in effect, laying the groundwork for the stage where Hybe's future Indian girl group will eventually perform and for the fandom platform Weverse to establish a local foothold. Hybe CEO Lee Jae-sang, speaking at the announcement, said the festival "marks a new chapter in our 'multi-home, multi-genre' strategy" and that it reflects "our commitment to making India a core market for Hybe's global growth."

A lineup built around India connections

A closer look at the lineup reveals deliberate ties to India throughout. Le Sserafim released a remix of "BOOMPALA" last June with Indian Punjabi pop star Guru Randhawa, layering his Punjabi verses over lyrics in Korean, English and Spanish; a music video shot in the United States and India followed in July. The festival will mark Le Sserafim's first direct encounter with Indian fans.

Katseye will be represented not by the full group but by Lara alone. An Indian American, Lara has consistently embraced her Tamil heritage through bindis and gold jewelry. Her older sister Leah Raj is also an Indian American singer-songwriter — and last September became the subject of the first joint signing between Republic Records in the United States and Hybe America. Hybe's decision to place the two Indian American sisters on the same stage reads as a calculated move to give Indian audiences someone to see themselves in.

Hybe flagships BTS and Seventeen are absent from the bill. Instead, TXT, Enhypen and Le Sserafim — all seasoned by world tours and overseas festivals — anchor the Korean side, while ballad singer Lee Hyun and producer-singer Beomgyu broaden the genre range. Both Lee Hyun and Beomgyu will be performing in India for the first time.

Several non-Hybe artists also stand out. Eric Nam released his fourth studio album, "Confessions of a Lonely Heart," on Friday — his first full-length record in three years since 2023, with songwriting credits on all nine tracks. Cosmic Girls member Dayoung topped music broadcast charts last year with the title track "body" from her debut solo single, a song that also appeared on NME's list of the 25 best K-pop songs of 2025. Hwasa, known as a performance diva, rounds out the Korean roster.

The Indian side of the lineup skews toward hip-hop and indie rather than Bollywood film music. The headliner is rapper King, whose "Maan Meri Jaan" was the most-streamed song on Spotify India in 2023. Supporting acts include up-and-coming rapper Reble, DJ Zelo, alternative pop duo RANJ&Clifr and singer-songwriter Gini. The selection squarely targets young Indian listeners who favor independent music over film soundtracks — the demographic that overlaps most closely with the K-pop fanbase.

Venues and wallets remain the challenge

The hurdles are real. Industry observers have long noted that India's concert infrastructure is woefully thin for a country of its size, and that fans' average disposable income falls below that of audiences in Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia. The practical reality that large shows often have to rely on cricket stadiums with inadequate sound systems adds another complication. With the venue and ticket prices for Weverse Con Festival India still undisclosed, the event's commercial viability will not become clear until ticketing opens Oct. 30.

Weverse Con Festival India will ultimately serve as the first real test of whether Hybe's localization model can work in India. A Hybe India official said the company would "raise the quality of the stage so that the music of the two countries can connect and the passion of fans can come together to generate an energy unlike anything before." The domestic Weverse Con Festival, held annually in South Korea, will continue separately from the India event.


shee@heraldcorp.com