SM Entertainment Holds 30th Anniversary Festival with Stars from Different Generations Gathered

SM Entertainment organized a large-scale festival to celebrate its 30th anniversary. From the 11th to the 12th, “SM Town Live 2025 [The Culture, The Future] in Seoul” was held at Gocheok Sky Dome in Guro-gu, Seoul, bringing together artists from various generations. Through the concert performances and artist interviews featured in SBS’s variety show “K-Pop The Beginning: SMTOWN 30,” the depth of time spent working with SM Entertainment was evident. BoA revealed that she has been with SM Entertainment for 28 years, including her time as a trainee. She described the company as feeling more like a school than an agency, as it was where she spent her teens, twenties, and thirties. Key of SHINee, who co-hosted the program with BoA, joked that he joined as a trainee in his second year of middle school and has now been with the company for 20 years. BoA added humorously that if this were a regular company, she might already have retired, drawing laughter from the studio. Kangta of H.O.T., who has been part of K-pop’s history, said on site, “I still get chills thinking about H.O.T.’s Debut,” referring to the beginning of SM Entertainment’s legendary era. H.O.T. was a super-large-scale project group by SM Entertainment in the mid-1990s that established an important milestone in K-pop history. SBS’s special program “K-Pop The Beginning: SMTOWN 30” served as a comprehensive look at SM Entertainment’s past 30 years, highlighting the industry’s history and growth through live performances and honest interviews from artists across different generations.