There’s no more doubt on how massive K-pop has become. Plenty of shows all over the world have prove this. However, this process has been a special surprise for the culture in South-American region with the past years’ groups from huge stars like SHINee, BTS, Super Junior to more rookie groups; even music shows like Music Bank have found a place where to share their talents and culture.
It’s been two weeks since Super Junior’s big show in Chile, and we had the amazing opportunity to interview Francisco Diaz-Valdes; the press director of Noix Entertainment, the company responsible for bringing K-pop to South-America. Following the K-POP Insider series, we spoke about the impact of K-pop in Chilean culture; what to expect in the future and more interesting stuff!
We hope you like it!!
1- Generally speaking about kpop and the boom it’s living, Do you think this boom is temporal or just the consolidation of the genre?
– We’ve been in the business for a few years now, in our opinion, it’s no longer a phenomenon like classic media qualify it, it’s a music style that came to stay and that year after year gives us more and better artists. In Chile, for example, groups like BTS and Super Junior have presented and soon will come MonstaX and Got7, in back years we could still define it as a phenomenon but has proved to be a success all over the world.
2- Being Korea so different in culture and language, what do you think attracts the fans to venture into their music?
– Nowadays, people are looking for something different, and not only that, they have the possibilities to access to it, there’s no difference between hear an Argentinian group and a Korean one even if they are a world apart, social media and platforms like YouTube and Spotify contribute to making it easier. Besides that, young people are trying to highlight from the rest and take a different path for things like their fashion style.
3- Was BTS and after and before the people saw the Korean music?
– BTS was massive, we were used to seeing shows of few thousand people.
– Interviewer: Bounded I dare to say.
– Right, they came to change the game and take kpop to a global level.
– Interviewer: In the opportunity, they presented in Chile all the tickets were sold in just a few hours.
– Yes, no one expected them to fulfil the Movistar Arena, do it twice was a big achievement
4- Has traditional media changed their way to see kpop in the last years?
– Yes, we have done an enormous work with the press, we’ve provided material and explained them, they are not guilty of not knowing about this, that’s why we are always teaching and helping with everything they need. For some people the still are some Chinese guys (Not being despective) who sing and dance.
5- About the difficulties of bringing a group to the country, which are the requirements for a group to present in Chile?
– The Noix team, especially Gonzalo (Noix CEO) knows a lot about this business, we’re always speaking about the groups and trends but that’s not enough, it depends a lot on the idols availability and sometimes fans don’t understand that in the case of EXO we’re the most interested in bringing them to the county but the chance hasn’t showed.
– All that together with the fact we are constantly going to Korea to speak with the representatives, we need to treat them as the stars they are, be respectful and giving them security about what we gonna do, in our case, we try to replicate the shows as much we can to Korea but some things can’t be done.
6- What can you tell us about the merchandising?
– Bring the official merchandising is hard, there are taxes and shipping costs and we don’t want to sell ten times their price, besides that, we try to acquire it through official channels so we can give trustability in the fans and especially the producers because they commercialize the image of the idols and do it without permission may close us doors in the future.
7- Having the SM Global Audition as context, Why look for talent in countries like Chile and Argentina?
– I do not have any official information but I consider this is a really interesting market for them, there are big shows here and those generate a good profit and together with that, this is helping them to expand the kpop in this part of the world.
8- What can we expect from Noix future shows?
– As I told you earlier, we are always trying to make the fans fell like a show in Korea, that’s really important for us, and why not improve it with our own style, Korean producers are amazed when they see the scenario we build for the idols.
– We also thought about the waiting line outside the Arena because we cant have any person inside before the show, so we made a zone where they can eat, dance and talk and make a special day for them, about the Hi-Touch we try to have the most we can but lamentably that don’t rely on us.
9- Are you planning to expand to other countries?
– We’ve already made shows in a big part of the continent, we would like to go to countries like El Salvador, Bolivia, Colombia but it’s not just going there and do it, there’s a work behind because they’re not artists who perform in small theatres
– This time Got7 will perform in DirecTv Arena in Buenos Aires and even though its a bit smaller than others places this will give the fans a more intimate show, we would like to perfectly adjust to fans but we cant. They generally come with a big team of dancers, make-up artists, etc, and with a tight schedule not always we can do all we want.
10- To your consideration, will this year be the peak of kpop?
– Maybe not the peak but serely a year where we will gather all the fruits of our work, the last Super Junior show want amazing, Got7 will be a big success because this group had been in an amazing year for them and we hope to have another surprise for this year. Now is the moment of the big numbers even though in the past years we host big shows like the BTS one.
Images from NoiX Entertainment. Special thanks to the whole NoiX Entertainment staff!