Music Bank

On Saturday, April 8, 2023, Plenitude Arena was transformed into a true European capital of K-pop. For this Paris stop of the Music Bank World Tour, nine South Korean groups brought together more than 30,000 fans for over three hours of live performances, featuring explosive stages, perfectly choreographed routines and special stages created especially for the occasion.

Paris in the center of the Global K-pop Wave

Welcoming Music Bank to Plenitude Arena meant giving K-pop a stage worthy of its international influence. For this Paris edition, the festival brought together Stray Kids, ENHYPEN, AB6IX, MAMAMOO, THE BOYZ, IVE, NMIXX, CRAVITY and P1Harmony. Nine of the most prominent names on the Korean music scene at the time. The event was also hosted by Park Bo-gum, a major figure in the Hallyu wave and a familiar face to fans of Korean culture.

© Apolline Cornuet

For Plenitude Arena, the event held particular significance: the venue hosted one of the European stops of a format designed to take Korean music beyond its borders. With a capacity of up to nearly 40,000 spectators depending on the configuration, Plenitude Arena provided the perfect setting to bring together a community of fans from across France and beyond.

More than 30,000 passionate fans turned up for this exceptional night, making Music Bank at Plenitude Arena a major event for K-pop in France. Following the festival’s first Paris edition in 2012, its return to the French capital also highlighted just how far the genre had come in little more than a decade: from a relatively niche phenomenon to a true global pop powerhouse.

Nine Universes, Nine Identities

At Plenitude Arena, the challenge was a major one: bringing together nine groups, their musical worlds and their distinct visual identities within a single show. The production was built around a monumental stage surrounded by giant screens, with lighting effects adapted to each performance and projections enhancing the choreography.

The result was a fast-paced show with a constantly evolving atmosphere. Each group had its own moment to showcase its identity before handing the stage over to the next act. The changes in mood, costumes and styles took the audience from the raw energy of Stray Kids to MAMAMOO’s powerful vocals, while also exploring the worlds of THE BOYZ, IVE and NMIXX.

But one of Music Bank’s true signatures was its special stages. At Plenitude Arena, these sequences allowed the artists to step outside their usual repertoires and create unique collaborations and performances. Solar from MAMAMOO notably performed a song in French inspired by the world of Ratatouille, while NMIXX covered TT by TWICE. Park Bo-gum also treated the audience to a piano performance of My Dearest. These special moments gave the show a unique dimension, deeply connected to the Parisian audience.

More Than Three Hours to Explore the Full Diversity of K-pop

For more than three hours, Music Bank delivered one performance and special stage after another. The setlist brought together each group’s signature tracks, combining recent releases with songs that had already become fan favourites.

• Stray Kids: CASE 143, MANIAC, God’s Menu and MIROH
• ENHYPEN: Polaroid Love, Drunk-Dazed, FEVER, Tamed-Dashed, Go Big or Go Home and Future Perfect (Pass the MIC)
• THE BOYZ: ROAR, MAVERICK, THRILL RIDE and Clover
• IVE: Kitsch, performed as a live debut, followed by After LIKE, My Satisfaction, ELEVEN and LOVE DIVE
• NMIXX: Love Me Like This, O.O, Young, Dumb, Stupid and a cover of TWICE’s TT
• CRAVITY: MONSTA X’s GAMBLER, That That by PSY with P1Harmony, followed by Groovy and PARTY ROCK

When the New Generation of K-pop Meets a Global Audience

The Paris edition of Music Bank brought together artists at different stages of their careers, but they were all part of the same movement: the rise of K-pop as an undeniable force on the international music scene.

Take Stray Kids, who now have nearly 10 million monthly Spotify listeners, ENHYPEN, with more than 8.7 million, or IVE, approaching 6 million. The groups performing at Plenitude Arena have since cemented their status as international stars. Their biggest hits have also accumulated hundreds of millions of streams on Spotify, including Stray Kids’ MANIAC, ENHYPEN’s Drunk-Dazed and IVE’s LOVE DIVE.

Even back in 2023, the audience at Plenitude Arena could already feel the scale of that popularity. Lightsticks lit up the stands, fans knew the choreography by heart, and every new artist taking the stage was met with another wave of cheers. Music Bank brought multiple fandoms together under one roof, united by a shared passion for music, performance and the entire culture surrounding K-pop.

The Night Plenitude Arena Became the Heart of K-pop

April 8, 2023, will remain a standout date in the history of Plenitude Arena. For nearly four hours, the venue came alive to the sound of nine South Korean groups, offering the Parisian audience a true celebration of K-pop: perfectly choreographed performances, diverse visual worlds, unexpected covers and special moments created specifically for this French stop.

At Plenitude Arena, Music Bank above all created a rare collective experience. More than 30,000 people gathered around their favourite artists, lightsticks transforming the stands into an ocean of light and an energy that carried through every performance until the very last song.

A night that confirmed K-pop’s growing place in France and established Music Bank as one of the major music events hosted at Plenitude Arena. An unforgettable memory for everyone who was there and proof that when K-pop comes to Paris, Plenitude Arena knows how to go big.