Stray Kids, ASTRO, THE BOYZ and more to collaborate for end-year music festival

Members of several K-pop boy groups, including Stray Kids, ASTRO, THE BOYZ and more, are set to collaborate for a performance at this year’s MBC Music Festival.

On December 22, MBC released a video teasing the upcoming collaboration, which begins with clips of different newscasters announcing the oncoming year of the tiger during the years 1998 and 2010, in accordance with the Chinese zodiac.

Ushering 2022 in as the next year of the tiger, the 2021 MBC Music Festival will see seven idols across six different K-pop boy groups collaborating for a special cover of SuperM’s ‘Tiger Inside’.

The line-up for the upcoming collaboration stage will feature ASTRO’s Moobin, THE BOYZ’s Juyeon and Q, Stray Kids’ Lee Know, PENTAGON’s Kino, ONEUS‘ Hwanwoong and AB6IX’s Kim Dong-hyun, all of whom are notably born in 1998, the previous year of the tiger.

Aside from the tiger-themed collaboration, MBC has also teased a collaboration between five female idols across different groups, according to Soompi. IVE’s Jang Won-young and Ahn Yu-jin, ITZY’s Yeji, former IZ*ONE member Kim Min-ju and (G)I-DLE‘s Miyeon have been announced as the line-up for an as-yet-undisclosed performance.

The 2021 MBC Music Festival will be hosted by Girls’ Generation‘s YoonA and 2PM’s Lee Jun-ho, who are expected to open the programme with a duet. Other performances include a collaboration between veteran South Korean folk singer Yang Hee-eun and ASTRO’s Cha Eun-woo, MAMAMOO’s Solar, Red Velvet‘s Wendy and OH MY GIRL‘s Hyojung.

The festival is set to take place on New Year’s Eve (December 31) at 8:40pm KST. The programme was initially slated to be an in-person event, however was later changed to an online event due to newly-implemented regulations from the South Korean government in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.