2023 MAMA Awards to be held in Tokyo

This year’s MAMA Awards, the K-pop industry’s biggest annual year-end music awards, will be held in Tokyo in November.

The awards ceremony will take place on Nov. 28 and 29 at the Tokyo Dome, making it the first Korean music awards show to be held at the venue, Mnet, the cable channel that broadcasts the show, said Thursday.

Tokyo Dome is a large-scale venue for music concerts that can accommodate around 50,000 spectators. It is known as a “dream stage” for singers.

Launched in 1999 as the Mnet Video Music Awards, the country’s first awards ceremony centered on music videos, the event changed its name to the Mnet Asian Music Awards to reflect the shift of its focus to music and began to present awards in other Asian regions, such as Macao, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Japan, in 2009. Last year’s edition was held at the Kyosera Dome in Osaka under the rechristened name, MAMA Awards.

The awards ceremony will be streamed live on major online channels, including YouTube.

“The ceremony will serve as a platform for music lovers from all over the world to come together, regardless of border, race or generation as it will honor the best K-pop artists chosen by fans around the world,” Sim Joon-beom, head of CJ ENM’s music entertainment division, said.