2023 World Scout Jamboree Korea Faces Backlash For “Conveniently Stealing” Headliners From A Music Festival For Their Own K-Pop Concert

The 2023 World Scout Jamboree held in Korea is already in controversy for the lack of preparation and bringing humiliation to Korea. A recent change of plans for their main K-Pop event is bringing more fire to the event and its coordinators.

The K-Pop concert is one of the main events for the 2023 World Scout Jamboree held in Korea. The concert, called K-Pop Super Live, was originally scheduled to take place on August 6 at a stadium in Saemangeum and broadcast to KBS1. However, the concert was postponed.

Park Bo Gyun, the Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, stated in a press conference that they decided to hold the K-Pop concert at the Jeonju World Cup Stadium on August 11, the day of the closing ceremony.

After considering factors such as the available manpower and transportation conditions, we have decided to hold the concert at the Jeonju World Cup Stadium on the 11th, the day of the closing ceremony.

— Park Bo Gyun

This change impacted the music festival, the 2023 Jeonju Ultimate Music Festival (JUMF), which was scheduled for August 11 to 13—coinciding with the Jamboree’s recently changed concert date.

JUMF found themselves in a difficult situation, finding out about the coinciding dates with the Jamboree just a week before the event. The organizer of JUMF and Director of MBC Jeonju, Lee Tae Dong, responded to this in a lengthy statement on his channel, expressing his frustration.

The Jamboree’s closing ceremony and the K-Pop concert have been scheduled to take place at the Jeonju World Cup Stadium on Friday the 11th. I am filled with anger. It’s not just because we’ve been preparing for the festival in the same city on the same day for a long time. JUMF even postponed its event date in accordance to the Jamboree’s schedule.

— Lee Tae Dong, organizer of JUMF

He also criticized the Jamboree K-Pop concert organizers’ apparent attempt to remove the artists who had already been scheduled to perform at the JUMF festival.

Today (6th), the organizers of the Jamboree event contacted me. They asked for understanding about their plan to have the headliners of Friday’s JUMF perform at Jamboree’s closing K-Pop concert on the same day—one hour before the festival. I was utterly dumbfounded by their request.

— Lee Tae Dong

Lee Tae Dong also criticized the lack of consideration by the Jamboree K-Pop concert coordinators, who he believed invited the JUMF artists because of convenience. He thought this was disrespectful to the audience who purchased tickets to see their favorite artists at the JUMF festival.

These artists were announced as headlines for the festival a long time ago. Since they are located close to the closing ceremony, Jamboree must have thought it was easy to invite them. Am I a fool for preparing for over half a year for this festival’s success? Is it okay for them to disregard a festival in their region just for their convenience? Are the rights of the audience who traveled a long way, paying significant costs and expenses to see the performance of a team, disregarded with a free show?

— Lee Tae Dong

In addition, Lee Tae Dong claimed that he invited 5,000 participants from the World Scout Jamboree to provide consolation to the exhausted children suffering from the heat and lack of hygiene at the campground. However, the Jamboree organizing committee responded with complete disregard and indifference to this proposal and even said that sending children outside the campgrounds is considered “illegal.”

Park Bo Gyun, the Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, said in the press conference that they had accumulated enough experience and expertise in safety management to bring the kids from Saemangeum to the Jeonju World Cup Stadium, which is 50 minutes away. Regarding this, Lee Tae Dong expressed his concern.

Even on ordinary days, the distance to Saemangeum is over an hour. It’s uncertain how long it will take that day. Without regard to what happens to the kids, they are tying up the kids to the desolate and rough land with K-Pop as the hostage, resorting to shallow tricks of power and organization in order to pretend to be successful with a spectacular show and avoiding responsibility to the end.

— Lee Tae Dong

Netizens were in outrage after hearing about the two coinciding concerts. Many of them stated the Jamboree event’s organizers as frauds or bullies, and others were concerned that this might mean artists will drop out of JUMF due to overlapping schedules.

• “Are they bullies?”
• “The fact they stole headliners from a large-scale festival like JUMF is outrageous…”
• “What terrible bullies… Are those idols going to do two performances that day? They can’t really reject”
• “What a bolt from the blue for the festival’s organizers”
• “They’re gangsters”
• “Does that mean they’re taking out OH MY GIRL? I’m speechless”
• “Wtf”
• “It must be difficult to do both concerts schedule-wise; does that mean they’re going to take them out of the festival?”
• “It’s already shocking that they’d steal any artist, but stealing the headliners is ridiculous;; they must be going crazy from the heat. This is legendary fraudulent behavior”
• “The agencies need to reject the offer; JUMF is from a local broadcast but what is MBC Jeonju doing? Do their contracts mean nothing?”
• “The Jeonbuk is absolutely shocking”
• “Are they in the right mind…?”
• “Are they crazy??? Asking for understanding??? You shouldn’t have created a situation needing understanding in the first place, you jerks who don’t have any business ethics.”

The headliners for JUMF on August 11 include OH MY GIRL, Dreamcatcher, and others. OH MY GIRL’s agency, WM Entertainment, stated that they had not received any contact from the Jamboree organizing committee and planned to proceed with their performance at JUMF as scheduled.

The lineup of artists set to perform at the Jamboree K-Pop Concert is currently under discussion. It is unclear whether the 11 artists, including IVE, ZEROBASEONE, NMIXX, STAYC, P1Harmony, &TEAM, Lee Chaeyeon, and others who were initially announced as part of the festival’s lineup, will be able to perform as initially planned.