— by Valeria Bedolla-Mendoza
In today’s world almost everyone around the globe has definitely heard the term K-pop whether it’s the impact of one of the biggest bands BTS or major success of girl group Blackpink or even cultural phenomenon like the film KPop Demon Hunters. The “Hallyu” or Korean Wave of K-pop culture has completely taken over the world in recent years. What started out a niche subculture has grown into a powerful force that has completely dominated the entire international music industry. K-pop is now one of the most popular forms of music worldwide but what even is it and where did it come from and how has Tacoma become a cornerstone of this expansion?
K-pop refers to a form of popular music that originated in South Korea. It emerged in the 1990s and these Korean artists were heavily influenced by the Western genres of dance music, R&B, and Rock. It is usually referred to as the musical output of teen idol acts, girls groups and boy bands who emphasize visual appeal as well as performance. These teen idols undergo a vast amount of training through agency auditions, online auditions and even street casting. The potential artists are offered binding contracts, the trainees live together and spend hours learning to sing, dance and speak foreign languages in order to prepare for their debut. The Korean artist training system is wildly different from that of a traditional American artist. This music form has immensely grown with major U.S. metropolitan hubs like Los Angeles and New York being the primary destinations for international tours, but new trends have been starting to take place with the rise of K-pop in the mid-sized cities like Tacoma. Specifically the Tacoma Dome has started to become a staple for these groups when traveling to the Pacific Northwest, with its massive capacity of over 23,000 people and unique wooden-domed acoustics it has transitioned from a local landmark to a global stage, showcasing the growing importance of Tacoma in the international music scene.
There has been a K-pop takeover at the Tacoma Dome in the 2020s by many groups with major sold-out concerts but to kick us off on our look at these Korean artists performing at the dome we are going to take it back about 17 years to one of the earliest moments that helped pave the way for today’s K-pop boom.
On June 28, 2009, girl group Wonder Girls were the first Korean artists to perform at the Tacoma Dome. They were part of the opening act for the Jonas Brothers World Tour 2009. They were brought on to perform at various North American dates but it was then later announced by the Jonas Brothers as well as their management that they had asked the Wonder Girls to open for the entire tour. This marks the significant early presence of K-pop not only in Tacoma but the entire U.S which is extremely cool!
However the current massive rise of K-pop at the Tacoma Dome came more recently on June 16, 2023 with the first K-pop headlined concert by nine-member girl group TWICE, and If I had a nickel for for every time a girl group brought K-pop to the Tacoma Dome I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s amazing that it happened twice! On this night they brought their Ready To Be world tour to the dome playing a sold-out show bringing in over 20,000 fans from Washington, Oregon, and Canada. This show demonstrated to all of the South Korean entertainment agencies that the Pacific Northwest possessed a massive fanbase and the Tacoma Dome was able to provide the right amount of space for the high production stages and runways.
The executive director of the dome talked about pushing the aspect of Tacoma as a solid K-pop market and that even the hotel occupancy was at rates only seen for major Tacoma Dome events.
Following the success of TWICE’s show the floodgates opened for more major K-pop acts, mainly boy groups which each brought a different demographic of the fandoms to the city as well as wildly different genres of music like rock, hip-hop, R&B, jazz, funk, electronic dance and many others. In April of 2024 seven-member boy group ENHYPEN brought their Fate Plus World Tour to the dome, which further proved that the venue could handle the complex stage productions as well as the fans multi-stan culture could handle the back-back major events.
Soon after boy group Tomorrow X Together (TXT) brought their world tour Act: Promise to the dome a month later on May 14, 2026 and it marked their first U.S date. The fans even camped for days across from the dome in order to be first in line for the show while still having hotel rooms for showers and naps. They completely “tore” up the stage reporter of The Daily noted. It was also said that the group showed off their vocal abilities and dance mastery with their “80s synth-pop-inspired tracks”. One of the members said “I think I fell in love with Tacoma MOAs,” (MOAs is their fandom’s name) and others mentioned how they will never forget Tacoma. Not only are the fans loving that K-pop acts are coming to Tacoma but even that artists are having a great time here!
The fun doesn’t stop there but in fact continues with the arrival of ATEEZ for their Towards The Light: Will To Power world tour on July 14, 2024 as well as their return on July 30, 2025 for their In Your Fantasy world tour. The group made Tacoma one of their primary stops showcasing that groups are starting to make the city one of their permanent stops on their North American Legs. The group’s impact is so large that news outlets started giving out I-5 traffic tips to all concert goers in advance. There’s still even more fun with the Right Here world tour of boy group SEVENTEEN. The group also kicked off the U.S leg of the tour at the Tacoma Dome, really solidifying the Tacoma status of being a “K-pop Hub” as well as no longer being a secondary location but as a primary stop for all K-pop tours.
These concerts have had countless impacts on the city. They aren’t like the traditional concerts we are all used to seeing but these start even days before the actual show. Fans organize events at local shops to get everyone hyped for the coming acts, even hand out “freebies” outside the venue and dance out in public spaces. Even economically these concerts have an impact from hotels being fully booked during the tour dates as well as local businesses and restaurants benefiting from the sales. According to Pollstar, The Dome even had $6 million in gross revenue during the first quarter of 2024. We even saw the rise of K-pop stores popping up in the Puget Sound region.
The rise of K-pop in the Tacoma Dome is more than just trends in concert bookings, and its history is still being written. We are seeing the shift in global culture taking over the United States. Tacoma is becoming a key player on the world stage of 21st century pop culture and not just a single night in music, its growing influence is a diverse world class hub for all art genres. What started out as just a simple Korean opening act led to one of the biggest girl groups opening the doors for many more global talents.
About the Author
Valeria Bedolla-Mendoza prepared this blog post as the final project for Musical History of Tacoma, taught by Professor Kim Davenport at the University of Washington Tacoma in Winter Quarter 2026; at the time, she was a junior pre-major.
Tacoma Music History 
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