Stray Kids, aespa, IVE and 25 More Acts Head to Hong Kong as Melon Joins Tencent's Music Awards

Kakao Entertainment announced on August 10 that two new award categories tied to its Melon music platform will debut at the TMElive International Music Awards 2026 (TIMA), hosted by Tencent Music Entertainment at Hong Kong's Kai Tak Stadium on August 22 and 23. The addition places Melon inside a Chinese-organized awards framework for the first time, and it comes on the back of a joint streaming chart that Melon, Tencent Music, and Line Music (Japan) quietly launched together just two months ago.

TIMA is now in its second year. The event combines live performances with awards, and this year's lineup runs to 28 K-pop acts, including Super Junior, Stray Kids, TXT, aespa, IVE, BABYMONSTER, PLAVE, RIIZE, NCT WISH, and All Day Project.

The first new category, Global-K Artist, will be determined by weighting the Global-K Chart at 30% and fan votes at 70%. That chart aggregates streaming activity across all three platforms in Korea, China, and Japan, giving it a reach that no single-country chart can match. Fan voting closed on August 9; the winner will be announced on the night. The second category, Melon Music Choice, goes to an artist who performed notably well on Melon's domestic chart over the past year and is decided entirely by a panel review, with no public vote involved.

The distinction between the two methods is worth noting. The Global-K Artist award gives fan communities direct influence over the outcome, which tends to drive engagement and voting campaigns in the weeks leading up to a ceremony. Melon Music Choice, by contrast, keeps the decision internal, functioning more like an editorial pick and giving the platform curatorial authority rather than ceding it to the audience.

Kakao Entertainment said it intends to continue expanding through global platform partnerships, framing the move as part of a broader effort to connect K-pop artists and their fans across markets. The company operates Melon as Korea's largest domestic music streaming service, and the TIMA partnership extends its institutional presence into a regional awards circuit that has historically been centered on Chinese pop and Mandopop acts.

For K-pop's award economy, the more consequential development may be the Global-K Chart itself. Launched in June 2026, it is one of the first formal attempts to aggregate listening data from all three major Northeast Asian music markets into a single ranking. Whether that chart gains traction as a standard reference point will depend on how the industry and fans treat it in the months after TIMA, but the Melon-Tencent partnership gives it a high-profile stage to establish itself.