Four young people and 15 bands are competing at the K-pop World Festival’s country round at the Vietnam Youth Academy (VYA).

Eight-member B-boy crew Gamblerz will perform at the K-Pop Festival in Hanoi (Photo: Kbeat.net)

The winner of the contest will represent Vietnam at the K-pop World Festival 2018 in Changwon, the Republic of Korea this September.

The contest’s regional preliminaries are held annually in Vietnam. The festival organisers will set up a new band from the winners, which will be trained by Vietnamese and Korean professionals before attending the K-Pop World’s final round. It is the 8th K-pop World contest to be held in Changwon, dedicated to all those K-pop lovers around the world.

"This is the first time I’ve joined K-pop fans in Vietnam," said Park Hy-jin, Director of Korean Cultural Centre in Hanoi. "I see such passion from the Vietnamese to perform on stage at the semi-final round."

The contest is held by the centre from May 10 to 13, as a part of the K-pop Festival in Vietnam, which also includes a K-pop exhibition showing collections and productions by Vietnamese fans from K-pop clubs. The exhibition was held from May 10-12 at Korean Cultural Centre.

A K-pop fair and ’cooking with idols’ event will take place from 1pm to 6pm at VYA, No 3 Chua Lang street to celebrate the contest.

Vietnamese singer Truc Nhan and Korean b-boy Gamblerz will perform at the final night on May 13. Truc Nhan is a talented singer who emerged from first season of The Voice of Vietnam in 2012. 

Nhan is in the top eight at the contest and has several hits such as Bon Chu Lam (Only Four Words) and That Bat Ngo (It’s Very Surprising).

Gamblerz is best known for winning first place at Battle of the Year in 2004-09, which is one of the four biggest contests in the world for B-boy break dancers. Gamblerz was known simply as Gambler, before founding members Music, Sebin, Darkness and Laser left to form another crew also titled Gambler; his crew was then renamed Gamblerz.

The eight-member set will treat local audiences to extravagant, international-standard performances throughout the night.

Last year, dance troupe Oops Crew was the Vietnamese representative to attend the final round in the Republic of Korea. They won the Audience’s Choice award.-VNA