A major K-Pop music festival has announced it will be coming to Australia this year.
This week, organisers of the Waterbomb festival confirmed it will host a debut event in Sydney in 2025, complete with new local social media handles. The news comes after Waterbomb made debuts throughout Asia last year, including China, Japan and Hong Kong, in 2024.
As of this writing, no other details from the event have been shared on the official website or social media.
Waterbomb first launched in Seoul in 2015 and showcases talent from the K-Pop, hip-hop and dance genres. As the name suggests, the festival also hosts a number of water-themed activities including a “water battle ground”.
Past lineups have included a number of big names like Zico, Jay Park, Simon Dominic, Jessi and Chung Ha.
Rolling Stone has contacted festival promoters for more details.
The news comes as K-Pop has enjoyed huge success locally in recent months. As well as Korean boy band Stray Kids – which features Sydney-born rapper Felix – embarking on a massive stadium tour of the country late last year, New Zealand-born, Melbourne-raised artist Rosé made history when she landed at #1 on the ARIA Singles Chart with her Bruno Mars collab track “APT.”, making her the first solo female K-pop artist to do so.
Rosé’s Australian roots run deep—she moved to Melbourne at seven and spent her teen years there before her K-pop journey took off. At 15, she auditioned for YG Entertainment at her dad’s suggestion, and the rest is history, debuting with BLACKPINK in 2016 and quickly rising to global fame.
Her debut album, Rosie, dropped last month which debuted at #2 in Australia and South Korea, as well as #3 in the US and New Zealand.
No doubt fans heading to Waterbomb festival this year will be hoping to see Rosé on the lineup.
