TWICE’s Successful Australian Tour Confirms K-POP’s Shift to Global Market Leadership... Bay Area to See K-POP Wave in 2026

Signs that K-POP has become the center of the global music market are becoming increasingly clear. TWICE’s historically successful Australian tour and the upcoming wave of K-POP concerts in the U.S. Bay Area in 2026 serve as proof of this shift. TWICE’s “THIS IS FOR” tour goes beyond being merely a milestone for one group. Over 50,000 tickets were sold in Sydney and Melbourne, and the 360-degree stage design led some venues to describe it as “the largest scale ever.” This tour demonstrates a dramatic change in the Australian market, where just 10 years ago, tours by Asian-based artists were extremely rare. Weno Na Rok, a key promoter of Asian pop at Live Nation Oceania, told Billboard, “K-POP and Asian pop always had fan bases in Australia and New Zealand, but they were clearly niche genres.” Data from the same company shows that Asian pop tours increased by approximately 600% between 2015 and 2024, while the number of touring artists rose by 275%. TWICE’s current Oceania tour has officially broken the record for the highest-selling K-POP tour in Australia. Their “READY TO BE” world tour drew 1.5 million attendees across 51 performances in 27 cities globally. The U.S. West Coast’s Bay Area is expected to become a focal point for a major K-POP expansion in 2026. Thanks to the success of Netflix’s global hit “K-POP Demon Hunters,” TWICE is set to perform back-to-back at the Oakland Arena on January 17 and 18. NMIXX will begin its first global tour, “EPISODE 1 — ZERO FRONTIER,” at the same venue on April 7. “K-POP Demon Hunters” was named TIME’s Breakthrough of 2025, highlighting Asian representation and a major pop culture moment for global fans. It is the most-watched Netflix original film to date, with over 266 million views since its release in June. Behind K-POP’s role in reshaping the music and identity of global youth culture lies the significant influence of online audiences and fan communities spanning continents. Woo Chuyoon, a professor of dance theory at San Diego State University and author of “K-Pop Dance,” explained that K-POP is unique due to its extremely precise choreography. He noted that K-POP groups are famous for their choreography, which is aligned and synchronized “like it was cut with a knife,” relying on “gesture-point choreography” focused on the upper body and eyes. This feature is designed to allow fans to easily replicate the moves and create challenge videos on TikTok, thereby motivating many young people to learn the dances and share them on social media. Live Nation’s research supports this, showing that 98% of Asian pop fans in Australia and New Zealand listen to music in languages other than English, and approximately 60% prefer non-English songs even if English is their native language.