[Edaily Starin YUN GI BACK Reporter] Seoul Arena has set out to build a “venue fandom” even before its grand opening. Following its first official booking, which expanded its connections with the performance industry, the venue is now implementing a strategy to cultivate the venue itself as a brand by inviting fans to directly participate in the preparation process.

According to Kakao on the 21st, Seoul Arena—scheduled to open in the second quarter of next year—is launching a fan-participation promotion called “First Seat.” Fans can submit their own suggestions for a commemorative message to be displayed on Seoul Arena’s very first seat and vote on the shortlisted entries.
The contest runs until the 27th. After selecting finalists through an internal review, fan voting will take place from the 24th to the 27th, with the final results scheduled to be announced on the 30th. The selected message will be engraved on a commemorative plaque and actually affixed to the arena’s first seat, which is set to be installed this November.
Benefits have also been prepared for participants. Tickets to Seoul Arena’s opening concert will be given away via a random drawing among the final winner, finalists, and voters.
This promotion draws attention not merely as a simple event, but as an effort to involve fans in the venue’s construction process. It breaks away from the traditional approach of welcoming audiences only after the venue is completed; instead, the concept is to allow fans to leave their mark on the space even before the opening and to create the first experience together.
Seoul Arena recently began accepting applications for its first official venue bookings in the second half of 2027 from concert promoters and entertainment companies. This is seen as a strategy to attract both the industry professionals who produce performances and the fans who will actually attend the venue, thereby securing demand and interest even before the venue opens.
Going forward, the plan is to expand the venue’s construction process and on-site experiences into content to build brand equity unique to Seoul Arena. Through the naming sponsorship agreement signed with Kakao, specific details—such as the venue’s name and the design of its online and offline spaces—are expected to be revealed sequentially.
Seoul Arena is the largest venue in Korea dedicated to popular music, currently under construction with Kakao as the lead investor. It is being developed as a Build-Transfer-Operate (BTO) project, under which ownership of the facility will be transferred to the Seoul Metropolitan Government upon completion, and a business entity in which Kakao holds a stake will operate it for 30 years.
A Seoul Arena official stated, “First Sit is a project designed to allow fans to directly participate in the very beginning of Seoul Arena and leave their mark on the actual space,” adding, “We will prepare this venue to be one co-created by artists and fans, sharing the experience with them from the very start of the construction process.”