KCON 2017 Brings TWICE, CNBLUE, NCT 127, GFriend, Highlight To Newark

The massive multi-purpose indoor arena in Newark, New Jersey, called Prudential Center was the venue of the East Coast iteration of KCON 2017 on June 24 and 25. K-Pop groups TWICE, CNBLUE, NCT 127, GFriend and Highlight headlined the event.

This was the third time that one of the iterations of the biggest annual K-pop and Korean-culture festival in the world was held in Prudential Center. Among the activities during the two-day event aside from concerts were fan meetings, panels and workshops.

Three days after the KCON in Newark, TWICE is set to release its debut Japanese album titled "#Twice." As for CNBLUE, the K-Pop boy band released its fifth major-label Japanese studio album titled "Euphoria" on Oct. 19, 2016.

On June 14, NCT 127 released its third mini-album. During their recent KCON participation, they performed "Fire Truck" and "Cherry Bomb," New York Times reported.

As for GFriend and Highlight, their fans are still waiting for the release of their next albums. The most recent albums of the two groups were both released in July 2016.

TWICE, CNBLUE, NCT 127, GFriend and Highlight were joined by other K-Pop artists in Newark. Rapper Kim Hae Sol, who is professionally known as Zion.T, performed on the first night while UP10TION joined the concerts during the second night.

The recent K-pop and Korean-culture event in Newark proved how popular K-Pop music is in the United States. It was beneficial to Prudential Center not only financially but also socially, according to the arena's executive vice president of entertainment programming Sean Saadeh.

"It's great business in a lot of different ways," Saadeh told Billboard. From a branding standpoint, KCON gave not only Prudential Center but also Newark positive attention, he said.

KCON 2017 will also come to Los Angeles in August. This will be the sixth time the festival will be held there.