The South Korean capital announced today that in 2024 it will inaugurate a covered macro-recinct to host the country's pop music concerts, popularly known as K-Pop, which will help attract more tourists to the city.
Work to build the so-called Seoul Arena will begin in September 2020 after designating the company that will develop the stadium, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said in a statement.
The venue, which will be municipally-owned and will have a capacity for about 18,400 spectators, will be built on a plot of more than 50,000 square meters in the district of Dobong, in the northeast of the city, near the Changdong station.
Lines 1 and 4, which cover many of the city's main tourist attractions, such as Myeongdong, Dongdaemun and Jogno, stop at this stop, and Changdong is expected to host a stop on the future regional express line by the opening date.
Dobong is one of the districts that the Metropolitan Government has included in its urban renewal programme.
The Seoul Arena will have the stage in the center of the venue to allow better visibility to the public and the idea is to host about a hundred concerts a year, according to the Metropolitan Government, which considers the infrastructure for recitals in the South Korean capital insufficient despite the popularity of K-Pop.
The venue will have a museum of K-pop fame and 11 cinemas, and in total will integrate an area of more than 243,000 square meters focused on South Korean pop music, a phenomenon that attracts every year millions of Asian tourists, and increasingly, from other destinations.
