12 min read
The kpop award shows list worth knowing has 4 major ceremonies and 3 broadcaster year-end festivals. The ceremonies are MAMA, the Melon Music Awards, the Golden Disc Awards and the Seoul Music Awards. The KBS, SBS and MBC festivals that run alongside them have plenty of performances but give out no trophies. Between late autumn and the start of the new year, these seven events decide which acts get called the year’s biggest, and the top prize at each, the daesang, is the one fans fight for.
Key takeaways
- A daesang (대상) is the grand prize. Most ceremonies hand out several, split by artist, song and album, and each counts as the biggest win of an artist’s year.
- MAMA and the Melon Music Awards come first, usually around the end of the year. The Golden Disc Awards and the Seoul Music Awards follow early in the new year.
- The KBS Song Festival, SBS Gayo Daejeon and MBC Gayo Daejejeon are concerts, not competitions, so nobody wins anything there.
- Fan votes count, but streams, downloads and album sales usually carry them. Each show publishes its own weighting every year.
The kpop award shows list: 4 ceremonies, 3 festivals
Not every event with “awards” in the name matters to fans. The four ceremonies below have each been around for well over a decade, they run on stated criteria, and a daesang from any of them follows an artist for the rest of their career. The three festivals are year-end TV specials from Korea’s big terrestrial broadcasters. People mention them in the same breath as the awards, but they hand out no prizes.
| Event | Run by | Usual season | Type | What decides it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAMA Awards (마마 어워즈) | Mnet, CJ ENM’s music channel | Late November to early December | Awards, several daesang | Mix of sales, streaming, fan votes and judges |
| Melon Music Awards, MMA (멜론뮤직어워드) | Melon, Kakao Entertainment’s streaming service | Around late November or December | Awards, several daesang | Melon streaming and download data, fan votes, judges |
| Golden Disc Awards (골든디스크어워즈) | Ilgan Sports, a Korean sports and entertainment daily | Early January | Awards, separate song and album daesang | Mainly sales and streaming data plus judges; fan vote mostly for popularity prizes |
| Seoul Music Awards (서울가요대상) | Sports Seoul, a Korean daily | January or early in the year | Awards, traditionally one daesang | Sales data, judges and mobile fan votes |
| KBS Song Festival (가요대축제) | KBS | Last weeks of December | Concert, no awards | Broadcaster’s lineup choice |
| SBS Gayo Daejeon (가요대전) | SBS | Last weeks of December | Concert, no awards | Broadcaster’s lineup choice |
| MBC Gayo Daejejeon (가요대제전) | MBC | Traditionally New Year’s Eve | Concert, no awards | Broadcaster’s lineup choice |
Two more names come up. The Circle Chart Music Awards (formerly the Gaon Chart Music Awards) base their prizes on chart data. The Korean Music Awards are judged by critics and lean toward indie and genre musicians, and fan votes don’t decide anything there. Both are respected, but neither draws the global livestream crowd the big four do.
What is a daesang in K-pop, and how is it different from a bonsang?
A daesang (대상, literally “grand prize”) is the top award at a Korean ceremony. When a group’s fandom says its idols are “daesang artists”, they mean the group has reached the top tier, and you’ll hear that phrase for years afterwards.
A bonsang (본상, “main prize”) ranks below it. Bonsang go to roughly a dozen artists who had a strong year. At several shows, including the Golden Disc Awards and the Seoul Music Awards, the bonsang winners form the pool the daesang is picked from, so a bonsang is in effect a seat at the table.
The other prizes you’ll hear about
- Rookie of the Year (신인상, sininsang): an artist can win it only once, in their debut year. That makes it the prize rookie fandoms push hardest for.
- Popularity awards: fan votes alone usually decide these, so they reward the most organized fandom rather than the most played song.
- Genre and craft awards: best OST, best dance performance, best producer and similar, which differ from show to show.
Award show wins vs music show wins
Don’t confuse these with music show wins. Weekly TV programs such as Music Bank, Inkigayo, M Countdown and Show! Music Core give a trophy to the week’s top song. A group’s “first win” usually means one of those weekly trophies.
A daesang is a different scale of achievement. If any of the fan vocabulary here is new to you, our guide to K-pop terms from bias to maknae covers it.
MAMA Awards: the biggest global stage
MAMA is the event most foreign fans have heard of, and it was built to be. Mnet started it in 1999 as a music video awards show. It took the name Mnet Asian Music Awards in 2009 and has been branded the MAMA Awards since 2022. From the 2010s on it has often been staged outside Korea, in Hong Kong and in Japan among other places, which tells you who it’s meant for: viewers across Asia and beyond.
There are several daesang, typically including Artist of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year, and since the 2022 rebrand a global-facing grand prize as well. The category names and how many there are can change between editions, so check the official MAMA Awards site for the current list.
Why MAMA feels different
Production is the draw. MAMA is known for special stages: one-off collaborations, rearranged hits and long performances you won’t see on weekly music shows. Plenty of viewers who don’t care who wins still watch for these stages. One thing to keep in mind is that Mnet is owned by CJ ENM, which also has interests in artists and survival shows. Critics have raised questions about fairness at broadcaster-run awards for years, and it helps to know that background when you read the arguments online.
Melon Music Awards (MMA): the streaming scoreboard
The Melon Music Awards started in 2009 and are run by Melon, Korea’s long-running music streaming service, now part of Kakao Entertainment. Because the awards come from a streaming platform, the results lean heavily on how Korean listeners actually played music on Melon during the year. That’s the main difference from MAMA.
The daesang usually include Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. A song that dominated Korean commutes and karaoke rooms can do very well at MMA even if the act behind it has a smaller international fandom, and the reverse is true as well.
What MMA tells you that MAMA doesn’t
Want to know what Korea itself listened to? Watch MMA. Want to know which acts have the biggest global reach? MAMA gives you a better picture. The two often agree on the year’s biggest names, and when they don’t, the gap between domestic and international popularity is usually the reason.
Golden Disc Awards and Seoul Music Awards: the January veterans
These two are the oldest of the big four, and they open the new year by looking back at the year just finished.
Golden Disc Awards (골든디스크어워즈)
Ilgan Sports launched the Golden Disc Awards in 1986, so they’re older than K-pop’s idol era. They’re split into a digital (song) division and an album division, and each gives bonsang and its own daesang. That split means an act can take the album grand prize on huge physical sales while another wins the song grand prize on streaming. Album sales still mean a lot in K-pop because fans buy several copies for photocards and fan-sign entries, and this show’s results reflect that.
Seoul Music Awards (서울가요대상)
Sports Seoul has run the Seoul Music Awards since 1990. Traditionally there’s a single daesang, which makes it the hardest of the four to win, since there’s no second grand prize to soften a loss. Fan voting runs through a mobile app named on the official site and feeds into popularity prizes and part of the main scoring.
These January shows run on their own timetable, so the year-end ceremonies don’t predict them. Treat each as a separate verdict. Each show also counts its own eligibility window, which is why a release from late in the year can count toward a different award season at different shows.
KBS, SBS and MBC year-end festivals: why there are no trophies
Every December, Korea’s three main terrestrial broadcasters put on huge music specials: the KBS Song Festival (가요대축제), the SBS Gayo Daejeon (가요대전) and the MBC Gayo Daejejeon (가요대제전). They used to give awards, but they dropped them years ago and now run as celebratory concerts.
That doesn’t make them minor. An invitation tells you which acts the broadcaster considers the year’s headliners. You also get collaboration stages, covers of older songs and unusual pairings across groups, and these are the clips that spread online in the days after. For a feel of how different generations of idols end up on one stage, our explainer on the five K-pop generations is useful background.
How the three festivals differ
- KBS Song Festival: usually in the final weeks of December and the easiest to find abroad, because KBS runs an international channel, KBS World.
- SBS Gayo Daejeon: SBS’s version, known for big stage design and themed segments.
- MBC Gayo Daejejeon: traditionally broadcast on New Year’s Eve, so performers often count down to midnight on air.
Dates, venues and lineups are announced fresh every year. The broadcaster’s official program page is the reliable source. Fan accounts often post lineup rumors before they’re confirmed.
How fan voting and digital points work at K-pop award shows
Each ceremony combines several kinds of scoring. The exact percentages change from year to year and from show to show, so you won’t find permanent figures here. You will find the parts every show draws on.
The four inputs
- Digital points: streams and downloads, either from one platform (Melon for MMA) or from industry chart data such as the Circle Chart.
- Physical album sales: counted copies sold in a set eligibility period.
- Judges’ or expert panel score: a panel of critics, industry figures or producers.
- Fan votes: cast through an official app or website. MAMA uses Mnet’s Mnet Plus platform and MMA uses the Melon app; other shows name their partner app on their official site each season.
Before you invest any time, read the show’s published criteria. It tells you which awards fan votes actually affect. Often it’s mainly the popularity prize, and big daesang weightings stay with sales, streaming and judges.
A worked example of what your vote does
Say your favorite group is up for a bonsang and a popularity award at the same show. If the criteria say the popularity award is decided entirely by votes but bonsang voting is a small share, your daily votes matter most for the popularity prize. For the bonsang, streaming the group’s songs on the platform the show counts during the eligibility window is the stronger contribution. Fandoms plan around this. They split organized streaming and voting by category, and that’s why you see detailed fan guides every season.
Common mistakes foreign fans make
- Streaming on a platform the show doesn’t count. A global service may not feed a Korea-specific award, so check which data sources are used.
- Voting after the window closes. Voting periods usually close well before the ceremony.
- Spending money without reading the rules. Some voting apps let you earn extra votes by watching ads or through in-app purchases. Know what you’re paying for and what it affects.
- Reading one loss as a snub. Different shows use different data, so different winners are expected.
How to watch K-pop award shows from abroad
You can watch all of them from outside Korea. Award shows are live television, and in recent years they’ve been streamed live to international viewers with English options. The platforms change, so take these as starting points and check each one for the current season.
- MAMA Awards: look at Mnet’s official channels and the Mnet Plus platform, which have carried MAMA for global audiences in recent years.
- Melon Music Awards: Melon and its official partners announce streaming options before the show.
- Golden Disc and Seoul Music Awards: each publishes broadcast and streaming partners on its official site and social accounts.
- KBS Song Festival: KBS World, the broadcaster’s international channel, is the usual route abroad.
- SBS and MBC festivals: check each broadcaster’s global channels and official YouTube pages for live streams or highlights.
Time zones and catch-up
Korea Standard Time is UTC+9 and doesn’t use daylight saving. An evening show in Seoul lands in the early morning in Europe and around midday or overnight in the Americas. If you can’t watch live, official channels usually post individual performances afterwards, and those are easier to watch than a four-hour broadcast.
Can foreigners attend K-pop award shows in person?
Yes, but it’s harder than buying a concert ticket. Seats usually come from a combination of general sales on Korean ticketing platforms, fan club allocations and invitations. Some shows held overseas, or aimed at global fans, add an international sales page.
Steps to give yourself the best chance
- Follow the show’s official site and social accounts from early autumn, because ticketing notices can come with little warning.
- Find out which ticketing platform is selling seats and whether it has a foreigner-friendly global page.
- If you’re in an official fan club, check whether the agency runs a fan club lottery for the show.
- Create and verify your ticketing account well before sale day.
- Plan travel around the official date and venue. Don’t book anything on rumors.
The ticketing skills carry over from regular concerts, and our guide on how to attend a K-pop concert covers presales, lightsticks and fan chants in detail.
FAQ
What are the biggest K-pop award shows?
The four main ones are the MAMA Awards, the Melon Music Awards, the Golden Disc Awards and the Seoul Music Awards. The Circle Chart Music Awards and the critic-led Korean Music Awards also carry weight. The KBS, SBS and MBC year-end festivals are major events too, but they’re concerts with no awards.
What does daesang mean?
Daesang (대상) means grand prize, the top award at a Korean ceremony. Most big shows give several, such as artist, song and album of the year. Winning one is widely treated as reaching K-pop’s top tier.
Do fan votes decide who wins?
Partly. Fan votes often decide popularity awards outright but usually make up only part of the score for daesang and bonsang. Sales, streaming data and judges make up the rest. Each show publishes its own weighting, so check before you vote.
Is MAMA the same as MMA?
No. MAMA is run by Mnet, a CJ ENM music channel, and aims at a global audience. MMA is the Melon Music Awards, run by the streaming service Melon, and leans on Korean streaming data. They’re separate shows from separate companies.
Why don’t the KBS, SBS and MBC year-end shows give awards anymore?
The broadcasters turned their year-end music specials into non-competitive festivals years ago. They now focus on performances and special collaboration stages. Being invited is still seen as a sign of a strong year.
When are K-pop award shows held?
The season usually runs from late November to early in the new year. MAMA and MMA come around the end of the year, the broadcaster festivals in the last weeks of December, and the Golden Disc and Seoul Music Awards early in the new year. Exact dates change every year, so check each show’s official site.
What to watch next this award season
Begin with the announcements. Each show reveals nominees, voting windows and broadcast partners on its official site, and those three details decide what you can do and when. If you plan to vote, put the closing date in your calendar the day the poll opens, and stream on the platform the show actually counts.
Next, compare the results. A group that wins at MMA but not at MAMA, or takes the album daesang at the Golden Disc Awards but not the song one, shows you how its year actually went: Korean listeners against global fans, physical sales against streams. Then save the year-end festival performances. The collaboration stages from the KBS, SBS and MBC shows are what fans keep rewatching long after the trophies are forgotten. If you’re thinking about seeing a show in person in Seoul, our guide to the best time to visit Korea explains what winter travel there involves.
Related reading
Sources k-korea.blog
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