BTS’ J-Hope to make history as first K-pop headliner at Lollapalooza 2022

J-Hope of BTS. Image: Big Hit Music via The Korea Herald

J-Hope of K-pop sensation BTS will make history as the first Korean musician to take the main stage at Lollapalooza, an annual four-day music festival held in Chicago’s Grand Park. He is scheduled to perform as the main headliner on Sunday (United States time).

This year’s Lollapalooza kicked off on Thursday at noon, with some 170 big-name artists set to perform on eight different stages. J-Hope will perform onstage between 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. (U.S. time) on the last day of the rock festival.

Announcing this year’s Lollapalooza lineup earlier last month, a festival official introduced J-Hope by saying, “His performance will make history, cementing him as the first South Korean artist to headline the main stage at a major U.S. music festival.”

After the list of performers was unveiled, U.S. online ticketing agent TickPick said on Tuesday that the Sunday ticket for Lollapalooza is the most in-demand single-day ticket on record for the music event based on the ticketing agent’s figures. It also threw the spotlight on J-Hope as a headliner for that day.

J-Hope flew to the U.S. for the festival on Monday, after dropping his first solo album titled “Jack In The Box” earlier this month. The 10-track album is the first-ever official solo album to be released by a BTS member. The band announced a new chapter of the act’s career in June so that members could focus on individual projects.

Lollapalooza, which began as a touring show in 1991, has since made Chicago‘s Grant Park its annual venue and become one of the leading music events in the U.S. Other headliners of the festival this year include Metallica, Dua Lipa, J. Cole, Green Day, Machine Gun Kelly, Lil Baby and Kygo.

Another K-pop act and J-Hope’s fellow labelmate, Tomorrow X Together, was on the list of performers as well. It will mark the boy band’s U.S. festival debut, with the band set to perform on Saturday at 7:45 p.m.

Meanwhile, global fandom platform Weverse hinted that it will be live-streaming some parts of the music festival, offering both J-Hope and Tomorrow X Together’s performance for free. It is part of the platform’s effort to share the daily lives of artists with fans, a Weverse official said. JB

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