At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic started. Due to this situation, some activities that were naturally considered to be face-to-face became non-face-to-face ones. In fact, the schedule of classes of the students is affected. This day, they have online classes, and on the next day, they have normal classes. However, not only everyday life in school but also cultural events are suffering its damage.

▲ The notification of a site which offers online class service

As this pandemic is prolonged, the social distancing period is prolonged, too. People are hungry for their cultural life. People are not able to enjoy movies, concerts, musicals, exhibitions, and others. So, each area finds solutions. In the field of exhibition, some companies make VR programs and let people watch them anywhere. Shows such as musicals provide free or paid online performances. One of the biggest entertainment agencies, SM, held the first online concert in South Korea, titled "Beyond LIVE" with their boyband, "SuperM". The ticket was 33 thousand won, and it is one-third of the offline concert fee. However, the concert made 2.5 billion in profit. After the big success of that online concert, other stars also held online concerts and fan meetings, such as TVXQ, EXO's Baekhyun, Super Junior, VIXX's Ken, TXT, and BTS successfully ended their online concerts. Many other celebrities are planning online concerts, too. A big K-pop concert, K-CON, was also held online and ended successfully with a lot of celebrities.

▲ A boyband BTS is holding their online concert.

Also, Netflix, which offers video streaming service is one of the beneficiaries of this situation. Since people cannot go to a cinema easily, they watch movies at home. Netflix is a service that serves not only various popular movies but also their own contents. In fact, Netflix has gotten twice as much as their number of subscribers than expected, and film-goers have decreased by one-tenth.

▲ Online video streaming site Netflix

In the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of entertainment is going online. The public is adapting to this new media system. Experts are saying that after the end of this situation, the entertainment forms will be changed. Can the COVID-19 pandemic be a springboard for the innovation of entertainment technology?

July 12th, 2020

by An So-mi