Big Bang meets Dooly, Enhypen reimagines 'Dune: Part Three' — MAMA Awards goes all-in on Osaka

Nov. 20-21 at Kyocera Dome Osaka

From a 5-kilogram trophy to 'Music Interstellar'

Park Bo-gum named first-ever MAMA Ambassador

Collaborations with artist Lee Bae, 'Dune: Part Three' and Dooly

CJ ENM Music Content Division Head Shin Hyung-gwan, Mnet Business Division Head Yoon Shin-hye and CJ ENM Convention Business Division Head Park Chan-wook [CJ ENM]

"I always say the MAMA Awards is an event that must succeed. It wasn't perfect, but just as we have never stopped refining this trophy's design, we have kept working to make the ceremony a little better each year."

The trophy in question weighs more than 5 kilograms, is shaped like a satellite, and leans at an unsteady angle. CJ ENM Music Content Division Head Shin Hyung-gwan lifted the battered award — made for the very first Mnet "Video Music Awards" in 1999 — as he spoke. An artist who accepted the prize on someone else's behalf that night left it behind, and Shin has kept it for 27 years.

The MAMA Awards has since grown into K-pop's preeminent global awards show. This year, organizers say they are rewriting the ceremony's playbook once again — forging partnerships with visual art, film and animation, and expanding the stage to encompass an entire host city.

Shin made the remarks Thursday at a media day for the 2026 MAMA Awards held at the Eliena Hotel in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. "This is the 27th edition, but we want to approach it with the energy of a rookie artist taking the stage for the first time and put on a genuinely fun show," Shin said.

The 2026 MAMA Awards will be held Nov. 20-21 at Kyocera Dome Osaka in Japan — the show's return to the country after last year's stop in Hong Kong. The theme is "A Music Interstellar," evoking the idea of drifting between stars across time and space through music.

Park Bo-gum named first MAMA Ambassador, linking both nights

The most visible structural change this year is a clearer division between the two nights. Chapter 1 on Nov. 20 will cover artist categories — the Fan's Choice Top 10, rookie awards, and solo and group honors — while Chapter 2 on Nov. 21 will focus on work-based categories such as song, music video and album. A new "Best Song Top 10" category, selecting the 10 most representative tracks of the year, has also been added.

Park Bo-gum, the first-ever MAMA Ambassador [CJ ENM]

Actor Park Bo-gum will serve as the thread connecting the two chapters, taking on the newly created role of MAMA Ambassador. Park first hosted the show in 2017 and is joining MAMA for the eighth time this year. "In previous years we assigned separate hosts for each chapter, but this year Park Bo-gum will carry the concept and narrative across both nights in a variety of ways," said Mnet Business Division Head Yoon Shin-hye.

The judging criteria have also been overhauled. For singer categories, the domestic and overseas streaming score weightings — previously 20 percent and 10 percent respectively — have each been set at 15 percent, while the jury evaluation share for song and genre categories has risen from 40 percent to 50 percent, reflecting a greater emphasis on the global market.

From Lee Bae's charcoal to Dooly — an 'elegant collaboration' with the arts

The centerpiece of this year's MAMA is what organizers are calling a "culture collaboration" with other artistic disciplines.

The first partner is Lee Bae, an artist known for using charcoal to explore themes of extinction, creation and the cycle of time. "The more technology advances, the more precious human touch becomes — along with the time and care embedded in it," Yoon said. "This collaboration is an invitation to reflect together on what is essential to art in this era."

The show's recurring "Cinematic Stage" segment will feature Enhypen reimagining "Dune: Part Three," which opens in December. Big Bang, marking the 20th anniversary of their debut, will share the stage with Dooly the Little Dinosaur, the beloved animated character created by cartoonist Kim Su-jeong in 1983. Google's AI, Gemini, will serve as the technology partner. On the investment that cutting-edge technology requires, Yoon said, "It is difficult to evaluate MAMA's value purely in terms of revenue or return on investment."

The lineup is billed as "all-generation." The surprise announcement of the day was Panic — the duo of Lee Juck and Kim Jin-pyo, who debuted in 1995, the same year Mnet launched. Panic will share the stage with Cortez, Woods, Zerobaseone, All Day Project and Hearts2Hearts in a performance bridging generations. "Even now, listening to Panic's music makes you feel the energy of youth," Yoon said.

Beyond the venue — Osaka turns into MAMA

The awards show runs two days, but the surrounding festival will stretch for more than 10. The first-ever fan participation event, "MAMA Fan Festa," kicks off Nov. 9 across Osaka's city center and on Mnet Plus. Fans outside the venue will be greeted by collaboration menus at Dotonbori shopping street, a Hep Five Ferris wheel playing nominee tracks, a "Star Touch" installation at Namba Plaza where fans can high-five their favorite artists on screen, and a red-carpet photo wall styled to match the main ceremony.

"The goal is for fans to start experiencing MAMA the moment they arrive in the host city and step onto the street — not just when they walk through the venue doors," said CJ ENM Convention Business Division Head Park Chan-wook. "We plan to continue this even when the show moves to a different city next year." About 690,000 people worldwide applied this year to become "Super Fans" eligible to vote for the Fan's Choice nominees.

The decision to return to Japan came down to market size. "Japan is the world's second-largest music market and a core market that has grown alongside K-pop's global rise," Shin said. On calls for the show to be held in South Korea, Shin said the team "deeply sympathizes" but added only that it would share more "once a direction is set."

A separate fandom awards show, "Phenomenon," backed by the government and led by the four major K-pop agencies, is set to launch in South Korea in December next year — around the same time as MAMA. The prospect of competition and potential synergy between the long-running MAMA Awards and the incoming Phenomenon is drawing considerable attention. "We will stay true to the direction MAMA has followed since 1999," Shin said. "Pop culture and music are new and young. Even if we don't succeed 100 percent of the time, I believe we must keep making new challenges and attempts."

shee@heraldcorp.com