PLAVE, RIIZE, and NCT WISH Join MMA 2026's First Lineup Announcement

The Melon Music Awards 2026 will span two full days for the first time in the ceremony's history, and the first lineup announcement lands with some genuinely big names attached. Kakao Entertainment confirmed on the 16th that the event runs November 14 and 15 at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul's Guro district, under the slogan K-POP CONNECT: The New Pulse.

This year's ceremony marks a real structural shift. Moving from a single night to a two-day stadium format is the kind of expansion that reflects how much the scale of K-pop fandom has grown, and the acts named in round one suggest the bill will live up to the ambition.

The boy groups bringing the highlights

PLAVE, who recently became the first virtual group to perform at a stadium, are confirmed for the stage. The five-member virtual act had a landmark first half of the year: every track from their April mini-album Caligo Pt. 2 charted in the Melon Top 100 simultaneously, a sweep that put them firmly in the conversation alongside their non-virtual peers.

RIIZE arrive at MMA 2026 at their three-year debut anniversary, having just secured their fourth consecutive million-selling album with mini-album II. Four straight million-sellers is a streak that only a handful of groups have managed, and it underlines how consistently the SM Entertainment group has built its fanbase since debuting in 2023.

NCT WISH round out the main trio with first-week sales of over 1.82 million copies for their first full-length album Ode to Love, a personal best for the group. That opening figure puts them comfortably in the upper tier of fourth-generation acts.

Rookies making early noise

Two newer acts also join the lineup. ALPHADRIVE1, who debuted in January and landed their entire debut mini-album in the Melon Top 100, are set to perform. Joining them is LONGSHOT, a rookie group under Morevision, the label founded by singer-producer Jay Park.

A new global chart category

Beyond the lineup, the MMA 2026 ceremony is introducing a Global Top 10 award category, calculated using a combined chart drawn from Melon, China's Tencent Music, and Japan's LINE MUSIC. The existing Millions Top 10 category will be retired in its place. For acts with strong pan-Asian fanbases, that new metric could make the awards race meaningfully more competitive than it has been in recent years.