The 2026 Mnet Asian Music Awards will introduce a 360-degree stage and its largest-ever lineup of performing artists in a single host city when the annual K-pop event returns in November.
CJ ENM said Wednesday that this year’s awards, set for Nov. 20-21 at Kyocera Dome Osaka, Japan, will be held under the theme “A Music Interstellar,” with performances celebrating K-pop's generations and genres.
The ceremony will feature K-pop stages spanning newly emerged acts such as Alpha Drive One, Cortis, Hearts2Hearts, Allday Project and Rescene, as well as veteran acts including Nayeon, Hwasa, CL and Big Bang.
The production will also make greater use of the venue itself. A 360-degree stage will be installed to improve visibility from different sections of the dome. Meanwhile, the artists’ seating area will be lowered to audience eye level to reduce the sense of distance between artists and fans.
The show will also incorporate performance routes through the audience area, allowing more fans to see performers up close.
CJ ENM said the staging will draw on Mnet’s more than 30 years of experience producing music programs and large-scale performances.
“At a time when the ways people consume music and their tastes are becoming increasingly fragmented, this year’s MAMAs aims to break down generational boundaries and barriers and create a moment in which music fans around the world can connect through music as a shared language,” said CJ ENM through a press release.
Ahead of the awards ceremony, MAMA Fan Festa will begin Nov. 9 across Osaka and on Mnet Plus, marking the first time the event will be held simultaneously online and offline.
The second round of ticket preregistration for the 2026 MAMA Awards opens Wednesday at 3 p.m.
The MAMAs began in 1999 as the Mnet Video Music Awards before being relaunched in 2009 as an Asian music awards show. It was rebranded under its current name in 2022.
In 2024, the event was held across Los Angeles and Osaka, marking the first time a K-pop awards show was staged in both the US and Japan in the same year.
The 2026 ceremony marks the event’s first two-day edition and will be livestreamed worldwide through digital platforms, including Mnet Plus.
lee.jungjoo@heraldcorp.com
