Gangnam is easily one of Seoul's most popular and tourist-friendly districts. The Gangnam Festival, too, is, therefore, not your usual music festival. It's a series of festivals and events in various parts of the Gangnam district, including but not limited to fashion shows, the Rising Designers Contest that showcases new designers to watch for, and the Trends Fashion Show that feature brands based in the Gangnam area. There's also usually an International Peace Marathon to raise money for charity and, of course, a K-pop concert to close off the events.
The Global Chief Food Festival, the Gangnam Grand Sale, the Great Korean Beer Festival, and the Coex Chrysanthemum Flower Festival are trademarks of this grand festival. However, due to COVID-19 restrictions, a lot of these events have been canceled as of now. However, fret not for the 2020 Gangnam Festival is now all on life! People from many corners of the world will now be able to witness one of the biggest nights in K-Pop via the ON:TACT Gangnam Festival of 2020. The motto for this year's Gangnam Festival is, "This too shall pass." The Festival aims to spread a message of hope during such difficult times where a real concert is not possible.
The line-up that was previously announced for this online concert were confirmed to include performances by RED VELVET (although it was not confirmed whether all of the members will be performing or just the "Irene-Seulgi" sub-unit), KANG DANIEL, Oh My Girl, ASTRO and AB6IX. Fans of all the artists were overwhelmed at attending this iconic concert from the safety of their own homes, which they would never witness otherwise.
The Festival was live-streamed via the 'SBS KPOP' Youtube channel on October 18th, 2020 at and from 7 PM KST. In the original livestream, Red Velvet took the stage as the final performers of the night and performed their hits "Psycho," "Bad Boy," and "Umpah Umpah."
However, Red Velvet's performances were completely excluded from the channel's broadcast of the event which was aired on November 1, 2020. Fans and Netizens speculated that this was possibly due to the controversy surrounding Irene and her behaviour towards her stylist.
On October 20th, editor Kang Kook Hwa, famous for being a visual director for many famous pictorials and having worked in the industry for over 15 years, posted a lengthy message exposing a celebrity for her verbal language as they attacked her and even mistreated her during work.
Kang Kook Hwa begins the story by mentioning the infamous 'nut rage' incident of the vice president of Korean Air and other incidents in which an individual used their status to abuse their power. She later went on to elaborate on an incident in particular where an alleged female celebrity verbally attacked the editor.
As soon as the post was uploaded, Netizens were speculating about who the celebrity in the post could be, and most of the assumptions pointed towards Red Velvet's Irene or Seulgi owing largely to the hashtags, 'Psycho' and 'Monster.' A former Red Velvet fashion coordinator also "liked" the post that was uploaded by editor Kang Kook Hwa. Other individuals from the industry also left kind words of support under the post.
It turns out that the said celebrity was, in fact, Irene from Red Velvet, and she now apologized for her behavior on her Instagram account.
She said, "It's Irene. I am sincerely sorry for the hurt I caused to my stylist with my foolish attitude and imprudent behavior. I regret that I caused such damage and hurt the many people who have worked with me to get here. Looking back to the past, I am ashamed of my words and actions and realize my staff's importance. I will think and act more carefully so that this will not happen in the future. I am truly sorry to the fans who support me and all the people who have suffered from this incident."
However, owing to growing speculations, SBS finally responded by saying that, "Not enough time was allocated to the broadcast in comparison to the actual length of the concert. The overall length of the concert had to be shortened during the editing process. We ask for your understanding."
