It looks like Australia is K-pop's new frontier.
K-pop stars have been touring the world, but primarily focusing on Asia. Over the past few years, a variety of Korean concerts have made their way around the globe, with tours heading to North and South America as well as Europe. Australia has had a concert every now and then, but over the past year, an increasing number of acts have turned to that continent.
Big Bang, Lunafly, and BTS just stopped by Australia earlier this year, and now BEAST are holding two fan meets this week in Melbourne and Sydney.
K-pop's popularity around the world is holding stable and growing each day, but it's not just Australian fans who see the demand for K-pop acts to head to Australia; Australian companies and government officials see K-pop bringing added interest to Australia from Korea.
Last week, soloist Rain toured the Australian state Queensland as an ambassador of a new campaign by the state to bring K-pop to Queensland.
"We are excited to have Rain on board as ambassador for Queensland and the 'Q-Pop' campaign, which we hope will inspire millions of fans to follow in his footsteps and come to visit," said Bob East, the chair of the Tourism and Events Queensland campaign.
"Korea is an important market for Queensland with 53,000 Koreans visiting the state in the year to June 2015 - a four per cent increase on the year prior - spending $147 million on their visits."
There are several event Australian organizers dedicated to bring Korean stars to the continent, and Australian K-pop fan Facebook groups with thousands of fans.
Here's to hoping we'll see some kangaroos and koalas in K-pop music videos in the future!
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Tamar Herman is a multi-media journalist and the co-founder of KultScene. She is a freelance writer and copy editor, and has written for MTV Iggy, Noisey, and Paste Magazine.
