Paris is hardly short of festivals, but on 24 and 25 October 2026, something rather different is taking shape at the Paris Event Center.

The A Festival is setting out to bring several corners of Asian entertainment into the same space: K-pop and T-pop, P-pop, Japanese rock and pop, Chinese artists, Thai hip-hop, music from Myanmar and Malaysia, alongside actors whose work has helped turn Thai BL and GL dramas into an international phenomenon.

Let’s be honest, it is an ambitious first edition, and perhaps its most interesting decision is also the simplest: not treating Asian entertainment as another word for K-pop.

The festival will run across two days, combining live performances with artist encounters, workshops, masterclasses, industry discussions and fan experiences at the Paris Event Center, 20 Avenue de la Porte de la Villette. Rather than building the weekend around one country or one fandom, the programme brings together music, television and live performance under one roof.

That approach reflects what has happened to Asian entertainment itself. Audiences who might once have entered through Korean music are now watching Thai dramas, listening to Filipino groups, discovering Chinese artists or following performers who are simultaneously actors, singers, models and musicians. And The A Festival’s line-up certainly doesn’t believe in staying in one lane.

From JASP.ER to ALAMAT: a line-up that travels

One of the festival’s biggest draws will undoubtedly be JASP.ER, the Thai group formed by RISER MUSIC/GMMTV and consisting of Joong Archen, Pond Naravit, Aou Thanaboon and Santa Pongsapak.

All four arrived with established acting careers and sizeable individual fandoms before JASP.ER debuted with SADISTIC in December 2024. Since then, the group has continued developing its musical identity through releases including TAKE IT OFF, TOUCH, LOVE SCENE and WISH. Paris will be particularly significant: The A Festival is being billed as JASP.ER’s first European appearance and their only European appearance of 2026. However, Thailand’s presence does not stop there.

4EVE bring seven women – Mind, Jorin, Taaom, Hannah, Fai, Punch and Aheye – from Thailand. Their music has moved comfortably through pop, R&B and hip-hop while their performances have become increasingly ambitious in scale. They perform on 25 October.

On 24 October, ATLAS will bring another side of T-pop. Now promoting as a six-member group, ATLAS have built their reputation around vocals, choreography and an increasingly varied pop catalogue. Their appearance comes during a period of transition and musical development for the group. Then there is TOBII, whose music lies somewhere between R&B, hip-hop, Afrobeats and Amapiano. The Thai-Swiss artist represents the increasingly difficult-to-label generation of Southeast Asian musicians who listen globally and make music accordingly.

Fellow Thai rapper IRONBOY brings a very different energy. The first winner of The Rapper Thailand, he has since developed a sound that mixes rap and melodic hip-hop with elements of pop and R&B. His 2026 project PARTYNARY pushes firmly into nightlife and party territory, which should translate rather nicely to a live festival stage.

The Philippines will be represented by ALAMAT, and theirs could be one of the weekend’s most interesting performances. Taneo, Mo, Jao, Tomás, R-Ji and Alas have never treated Filipino identity as decoration around their music. Regional languages, indigenous instruments and cultural references have been brought into contemporary R&B and pop from the beginning. Their appearance in Paris is also being promoted as the first performance by a P-pop group in France. Their recent releases have also shown just how much ALAMAT have developed their own musical identity. Sinigang, in particular, is a wonderfully smooth piece of R&B that also shows the group’s growing involvement in writing and production.

Korea, China and Japan enter the picture

Korea is represented by artists at very different points in their careers.

TRENDZ arrive in Paris during their 2026 European activities. The seven-member group has beautifully developed from rookies into confident live performers, and festival-goers will get more than a conventional stage: The A Festival has announced a special TRENDZ dance workshop and interactive experience on Saturday, available to festival ticket holders through separate free registration.

POW represent a younger generation of K-pop. Yorch, Hyunbin, Jungbin, Dongyeon and Hong have built their identity around bright melodies and youthful pop while gradually taking more creative ownership of their material. They perform on 25 October.

There will also be an opportunity to meet Jacob of THE BOYZ in a very different musical context. Jacob’s first official solo album, j., released in June, allowed the Canadian-Korean singer-songwriter to step away from the scale of THE BOYZ and into something considerably more personal. For listeners who know him primarily through the group, Paris offers an opportunity to see the songwriter behind the idol.

China, meanwhile, is represented in two very different ways.

AM8IC are five Chinese artists – Mingkai, Roux, Saho, Chungyi and Chen – who debuted together in Korea in 2025 with their EP LUKOIE. Mingkai and Roux may already be familiar to viewers of Starlight Boys. Their music and training sit at an interesting intersection between Chinese identity and the Korean idol system, and their Paris performance on 25 October comes remarkably early in their career. At the other end of that spectrum is Sunny Lukas, a Chinese-born multilingual singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist whose work crosses Y2K R&B, C-pop, hip-hop and international pop. His résumé already includes The Next Stage, Rolling Loud Thailand, opening for Lay Zhang and work with producers and writers including Hit-Boy and James Fauntleroy.

The Japanese side of the line-up includes 7!! (Seven Oops). The Okinawan band will be instantly familiar to a generation of anime viewers thanks to Lovers, used as an opening theme for Naruto Shippuden. They perform in Paris on 25 October.

Malaysia’s DOLLA add another piece to the Southeast Asian picture. Sabronzo, Tabby and Angel have become one of Malaysia’s most visible contemporary girl groups, combining pop, R&B, dance and hip-hop. Their appearance comes shortly after the release of G.O.A.T, their collaboration with Thai rapper F.HERO, making their Paris date well timed. DOLLA perform on 24 October. And then there is Oak Soe Khant, flying the flag for Myanmar. Singer, songwriter, actor and performer, Oak began making music at just 14 and has subsequently worked across Myanmar, Thailand and Japan. He became the first Burmese artist to perform at Rolling Loud and has also appeared at Thailand’s Big Mountain Music Festival. He joins the Paris programme on 24 October.

That breadth matters; seeing Myanmar, Malaysia and the Philippines on the same bill as Korea, Japan, China and Thailand makes The A Festival considerably more interesting than another event built around whichever corner of Asian pop happens to be fashionable at the moment.

And then there are the dramas…

Music is only half the story; the explosive international growth of Thai BL and GL has created a new kind of global star – actors whose audiences can stretch thousands of miles beyond the country where their series were made. The A Festival is bringing several of those artists to Paris, but its selections mix established favourites with pairings that audiences are only beginning to discover.

OrmFolk – Ormsin Supitcha and Folk Sutima – arrive after winning audiences over through Apple My Love and (Your) Apple. Their work together has made them one of Thailand’s emerging GL pairings, and Paris will allow European fans to meet the actresses away from their characters and cameras.

Myyu Khawisara and Chanya Amarit Duval bring another GL partnership to the festival. The official Me Mind Y pairing recently led AI Girl, while Chanya’s Thai-French background gives their Paris appearance a fitting connection to the festival’s stated ambition of bringing Asia and Europe closer together.

On the BL side, Jinn Jinna and Sky Sutthinan will arrive with Ocean’s Heart, Kongthup Production’s new series, which is currently scheduled to premiere in September. Mixing romance with action, secrets and undercover missions, the project offers something slightly different from the familiar university and office-romance settings of the genre. The festival is also promising behind-the-scenes material filmed on the Ocean’s Heart set.

Top Piyawat and Chan Jitt-Isara, meanwhile, are a pairing audiences have barely had time to get to know. Top already comes with acting experience from projects including Every You Every Me, while Chan comes from modelling and fashion. Thai-New Zealand actor James Prescott comes to Paris individually. After 14 Again: I Love You Two Thousand, Bad Guy My Boss and Love Alert, James already has further projects in development. New Chayapak, Pide Monthapoom, PJ Mahidol and Leon Zech – the actors behind FourMod, Chian, Baabin and Bua – will bring the world of GELBOYS to Paris while GELBOYS Season 2 is developing. Their announcement is the festival’s 20th artist/guest reveal, and their participation should appeal to audiences who have followed the series’ wonderfully messy take on young relationships and modern dating.

Behind the expanding programme is Emmanuelle Amelin, Founder and President of 5 Oceans Entertainment, working alongside Ely Valle of Envol Production as co-organisers of The A Festival.

Amelin’s work is relevant to what the festival is trying to achieve. 5 Oceans Entertainment specialises in developing Asian entertainment within European markets, working across artist booking, touring, event programming, communications, media, music production and fan experiences. Its stated purpose is not simply to import artists for isolated European appearances, but to create longer-term connections between Asian talent, agencies and audiences in Europe.

Amelin herself describes her work in terms of “building connections between Asia and Europe, artists and audiences, creativity and strategy”. It is an idea that could easily become corporate language, but in the context of The A Festival it has a tangible meaning. Put ALAMAT next to THE BOYZ’s Jacob; put Myanmar’s Oak Soe Khant on a programme with 4EVE; let an anime fan discover AM8IC, or somebody who arrived for JASP.ER wanders into an industry discussion about how a drama is actually made and suddenly those different sides of Asian entertainment don’t feel so separate.

Amelin and Valle have described their aim as allowing visitors to create their own version of the festival: perhaps discovering an artist they had never heard before, meeting an actor, attending a conference or simply encountering another culture through somebody else’s work; that might ultimately be The A Festival’s strongest idea.

The A Festival takes place on 24–25 October 2026 at the Paris Event Center, 20 Avenue de la Porte de la Villette, 75019 Paris. The programme runs with concerts, Asian drama guests, industry talks, workshops, fan experiences and additional activities across the weekend.

Tickets are available here.

Written by Maggie Gogler

Featured image courtesy of The A Festival

_{View of the Arts is an online publication dedicated to film, music, and the arts, with a strong focus on the Asian entertainment industry. As we continue to grow, we aim to deepen our coverage of Asian music while remaining committed to exploring and celebrating creativity across the global arts landscape.}