My Experience at the HipHopPlaya Music Festival
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This past weekend I had the opportunity to check out the HipHopPlaya music festival. As the name suggests, this is an annual music festival highlighting Korean Hip-Hop and RnB artists. Some notable names that you may recognize that headlined this year include: Dean, Crush, Zico, BewhY, Superbee, and Beenzino. This is usually a 2 day festival going from noon to around 10PM. This was my first actual music festival experience and I could not be more happy with how it turned out. After talking with some friends who had been to festivals back in the USA, there were some pretty big differences that you should know about!
An obvious difference was the overall atmosphere. At Korean festivals everything seems a lot more lax and laid back. Not everyone is trying to push their way to the front and people are able to picninc and watch the show from a distance. Also there is a lot less crowd movement. For Hip-Hop shows especially they have a reputation for being very rowdy and rough, but I did not experience any of that at HipHopPlaya. Although it felt weird to not be jumping around to some of my favorite songs, everyone was very respectful and gave you space if you needed it. Another difference is in overall attendence. Many festivals in the states have reputations for drawing over 20,000+ people! But at HipHopPlaya the number floats at around the 10,000 people mark. I never felt that the venue was overcrowded or packed. A BIG plus was the food and drinks! To my surprise everything was very cheap and affordable, plus the lines were not long at all!
Overall, The festival was an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Korean Hip-Hop and RnB music! Even if you do not know any of the artists, it is still a fun experience to take a nice day off and listen to some great music! This is also not the only festival in Korea, as there are many different ones for different genres of music! Keep your eyes open for signs and posters all around Korea advertising for festivals and concerts because it is definitely worth the experience!
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