RELIVE IT: allkpop booth at KBS New York Korea Festival!

The allkpop team has been waiting weeks for October 8th and 9th to roll around — while we’re proud to be the leading online authority for Korean entertainment news, working around the clock gave us cabin fever and we were itching to have some fun outdoors. The KBS New York Korea Festival at New Jersey’s Overpeck Park was the perfect excuse for us to stretch our legs, but since we’re workaholics… well, we decided to bring back the popular AKP booth (first seen at L.A’s Korean Music Festival back in May). Since we were on home soil, we wanted to make our booth bigger and better, and so we teamed up with Korea’s very own SK Planet to make that happen.
Although most fans came to see their favorite stars at the concert, KBS also hosted a cultural festival all weekend. Booths lining the perimeter of the event offered grilled kalbi meat and spicy ramyun, tempting everyone in the area with its rich smells. Attendees of all ages and backgrounds sampled Korean cuisine while pursuing merchandise stalls.

The first allkpop booth in L.A. was extremely fun, so we decided to raise the bar this time around, doubling the size, prizes and giveaways for a huge two-day event. Set-up began on Saturday morning, and although the booth wasn’t scheduled to open for another few hours, fans decked out in red began to flock around the area.

We finally kicked things off with a dance contest to 2NE1‘s “I Am The Best“. MCs Jessica and Daniel led with the mics, and the afternoon was crammed full of fun giveaways, hot mash-ups and remixes from our resident cool kid DJ REXROWDEE, and bold performances from fans. It was pretty amazing to see the variety of talent that fans whipped out for free merchandise: for example, who knew we had readers who could sing ‘Happy Birthday’ while gargling water?

Aside from the numerous contests and freebie prizes we were handing out, fans also got to try out an awesome new app called ‘Starcall‘. If you haven’t heard about it yet, then you’re definitely missing out: by downloading this app onto your smartphone (Android or iPhone), you can receive direct video calls from your favorite K-Pop idols like SNSD, Super Junior, SHINee and more — all in realtime, all for free!
Already established as a fan favorite in Korea, Starcall has just gone international and will become available for fans worldwide. Everyone who visited our booth had the chance to sign up for the beta version and try out the app for themselves. “It was pretty cool to see my bias talking to me. I spazzed and almost dropped the phone,” one girl revealed.

As the day continued, the I LOVE DANCE dance crew dropped by to performed a surprise flash mob, drawing a huge crowd with a medley performance of tracks that included miss A‘s ”Good Bye Baby” and Super Junior‘s “Mr. Simple”.
Founded by MJ Choi in 2006, I LOVE DANCE has been teaching K-Pop and dance lovers alike various K-Pop and hip hop choreography pieces. I LOVE DANCE started to become a name known both online and offline, especially after they won 2nd place in YG’s recent 2NE1 dance cover contest. They also performed on Korea Day in Central Park, as well as in the Koreatown Korean Parade earlier this month.
On October 29th, the crew has plans to surprise the public with a flash mob event in the heart of Times Square with K-Pop fans from all over New York City.


As dusk fell on Sunday, fans began to stream towards the enormous stage in anticipation for the K-Pop concert. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to check out allkpop’s ‘RELIVE IT’ coverage series, which recaps the KBS New York Festival concert with performances from TVXQ, 2PM, SHINee, 4minute, B2ST, G.NA, Kim Tae Woo, SISTAR and more!