[Courtesy of YG Entertainment]
The SamE, located right next to YG's building, has a cafe, a merchandise store, and a small exhibition hall. It offered visitors a one-stop experience of K-pop culture. Lucky visitors may have a chance to enjoy their drinks and activities in "the same" space as popular K-pop stars.
YG opened the cultural space in June 2021, but it has been largely unused for about five months because of strict social distancing guidelines. Using Zepeto, a metaverse platform operated by South Korea's web service giant Naver, YG opened the digital version of the SamE to invite global fans who can roam about its cafe and merchandise store or enjoy music videos of YG artists such as BLACKPINK.
A metaverse is a virtual world that can be accessed using a smartphone, PC, or a virtual reality headset. Each user is represented by a personalized character called "avatar." In the metaverse version of SamE, users can buy special outfits which BLACKPINK wore at the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, an annual music and arts festival held in the United States.
"We will provide differentiated services for our global fans using a metaverse platform that follows the big trend in the non-face-to-face era," YG said in a statement on November 9.
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