Courtesy Starship Entertainment
Monsta X will perform at this weekend’s We Bridge music festival at Michelob Ultra Arena.
Monday, April 17, 2023 | 2 a.m.
A multitude of music festivals have landed in Las Vegas in recent years, including next month’s seminal Electric Daisy Carnival at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the second-year R&B and hip-hop fest Lovers & Friends at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds.
But the newest event, this week’s We Bridge at Mandalay Bay, brings something new and different. The inaugural three-day cultural expo and two-day music festival is planned as a celebration of Asian entertainment and culture, and it boasts some big headliner names from the world of K-pop music — namely superstar pop group Monsta X and New York-born rapper and singer Jessi.
Rounding out the festival bill are Enhypen, Kang Daniel, Viviz, Dreamcatcher, Cix, Oneus, Fromis 9 and Be’o. Tickets for the concert events, set for 7 p.m. April 22 and 23 at Michelob Ultra Arena, are available at webridgeexpo.com.
“Vegas has never done something like this before,” said Alex Kang, CEO of Infinite Prospects Entertainment, the event’s organizer. “We’re trying to make Las Vegas the AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Islander] entertainment hub. This is just the first year and it’s very Korean-focused this year [music-wise], because we wanted to make a big splash and go from there.”
Kang’s partnership with MGM Resorts International, operator of Mandalay Bay, already created a big splash in Vegas entertainment when the companies helped bring K-pop sensation BTS to town for four sold-out concerts at Allegiant Stadium one year ago. That success was another indicator of Las Vegas’ growth as an international entertainment destination, as well as a symbol of the global popularity of Korean pop music right now and the Asian influence on mainstream pop culture.
“It was a fun event and even we didn’t think it was going to be that successful,” Kang said. “It’s not just K-pop, there’s Japanese, Chinese, all these other Asian music genres that have this following. And these concerts are for everyone, it’s not just an Asian following. It’s almost like [fans] have built a community around each artist.”
That community of fans tends to do more than just buy concert tickets in the cities their favorite artists play, they essentially take over. That’s another reason why We Bridge has built the expo element, to provide a place for fans and followers to connect with each other, Kang said.
The three-day expo running April 21-23 will be held at the Bayside Exhibit Hall at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center and will include an art gallery, a marketplace with various Asian food vendors, merchandise shops, an arcade lounge, a dance stage featuring multiple group performances, an array of panels discussing social topics and Asian heritage, and the Grammy Museum stage where the festival’s artists will be making appearances and doing interviews.
“The expo portion is very important because without that, it’s just like any other festival or concert,” Kang said. “It differentiates us and also gives us an opportunity to raise awareness for the AAPI community at a time when anti-Asian violence is still going on all over the world.”
