[2026 Parliamentary Audit] Access Restricted for BLACKPINK Event for 40 Fans... National Museum of Korea: "Collaboration, Not Rental"

YG Letter Cites "Fan Event and Cooperation on Facility Use"; Collaboration Criteria Questioned at Parliamentary Audit
Event Approved Five Days Ahead; Visitor Restrictions Announced at 7 p.m. the Day Before
New Admissions to Special Exhibition Halted

The National Museum of Korea came under scrutiny during a parliamentary audit after it restricted entry to a special exhibition gallery for one hour for a BLACKPINK 10th anniversary fan event, yet treated the event as a collaborative project rather than an external venue rental. An official letter from the group's agency, YG Entertainment, requesting cooperation explicitly stated that the event was a fan event and specified the purpose of the facility use. The museum maintained that it was a promotional collaboration under an existing agreement. Questions were raised over the criteria for distinguishing a collaboration from a rental when a public exhibition facility is provided for an event organized by a private agency.

BLACKPINK's 10th Anniversary Celebration Live Broadcast. YouTube

At the National Assembly's parliamentary audit of the National Museum of Korea on October 19, Kim Jae-won of the Rebuilding Korea Party questioned how the BLACKPINK 10th anniversary fan event, held on August 8, 2026, was organized and what standards governed the use of the facility.

An official letter from YG, made public by Kim, listed the event name as "BLACKPINK 10th Anniversary Exhibition Tour Fan Event." It also requested cooperation with the use of the museum's facilities and event-site safety management. Kim questioned the grounds for classifying the event as a collaboration rather than a rental, despite an external organizer requesting use of the facility for a fan event.

National Museum of Korea Director Yu Hong-jun responded that the event was a collaboration with YG. Kim countered that the audio guides, promotional images, and pink lighting on the museum's exterior in February 2026 could be considered a collaboration to promote cultural heritage, but that the August fan event had been organized separately. He asked what grounds had been used to make the distinction.

The event was also organized on a tight schedule. According to a timeline the National Museum of Korea previously provided to the media, YG requested the fan event on July 29, and Director Yu gave final approval on August 3, just five days before it was held. On August 5, the venue was set as the lobby of the special exhibition "Amazing Thailand: Masterpieces of Thai Art," and YG's official request for cooperation was received on August 7, the day before the event.

Visitors were also notified just one day before the event. At around 7 p.m. on August 7, the museum posted a notice on its website titled "Temporary Adjustments to Some Exhibition Spaces on the Afternoon of August 8." The notice said only that entry to some exhibition spaces might be adjusted due to a "museum event"; it did not identify the event as a BLACKPINK fan event or specify the hours during which entry would be restricted.

On August 8, the day of the event, entry for new visitors to Special Exhibition Gallery 1 was restricted from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. At the time, the gallery was hosting "Amazing Thailand: Masterpieces of Thai Art," an exhibition introducing Thai history and art. The museum said that as of the day before the event, 65 visitors had preregistered for the special exhibition, and that around 50 to 60 people were waiting at the venue when the entry restriction was lifted at about 3 p.m.

An existing educational program was also affected. The exhibition viewing portion of author Lee Da's "Amazing Thailand Exhibition Visit + Drawing Workshop," scheduled for that afternoon, was delayed. After the event, Lee said on social media that the group had originally been scheduled to view the exhibition from 2:30 p.m., but because entry was restricted, the lecture portion was extended until 3:10 p.m. The museum said it had changed the schedule with the publisher's consent the day before the event.

Forty fans selected by lottery and all four BLACKPINK members attended the fan event. The museum said visitors had been notified in advance and that those who were unable to enter were given tickets to another special exhibition, "Our Table."

The museum said the event was an extension of the global "National Museum of Korea x BLACKPINK" collaboration launched in February 2026. From February 27 to March 8, 2026, the National Museum of Korea illuminated the exterior of the museum in pink and presented audio guides in Korean, English, and Thai, featuring BLACKPINK members. At the time, the museum said the initiative used the global popularity of a K-pop group to promote Korean cultural heritage overseas.

The museum also said the purpose of the August event was to promote the Thai special exhibition by drawing on the popularity of Lisa, a member of the group from Thailand. However, no specific performance data has been provided to show how much the fan event actually increased exhibition attendance or generated promotional impact.

Immediately after the event, a complaint requesting an investigation into the approval process and the appropriateness of restricting visitor access was submitted through the e-People portal. The complaint, initially assigned to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's Audit Office, was later transferred to the National Museum of Korea. In its response to the complaint on August 28, the museum apologized, saying there had been shortcomings in the event's operation. It also said that for similar collaborations in the future, it would carefully assess the impact on general visitors and exercise greater care in providing advance notice and managing events on site.

There have been previous instances in which outside events at the National Museum of Korea restricted visitor access. During a dinner held at the museum for the South Korea-U.S. summit on May 21, 2022, the museum was temporarily closed, forcing 774 visitors with reservations for a special exhibition to cancel or reschedule their visits. The issue of a possible violation of the museum's venue rental rules was raised during a parliamentary audit at the time, and the museum subsequently revised those rules.

This time, a separate issue arose because the event was classified as a collaboration rather than a venue rental. Questions include whether the requirements for treating an event that uses the museum's facilities as a collaboration, the authority responsible for making that determination, and the procedures for assessing its impact on visitors in advance are clearly defined. The extent to which visitor-protection procedures under the venue rental rules can be applied to collaborative events is also at issue.

Kim said, "The internal rules or standards for distinguishing rentals from collaborations, and who makes that determination, must be made clear." He called for the establishment of criteria for evaluating collaborative events and a system to assess their impact on visitor access. He also requested data analyzing how much the BLACKPINK fan event in August 2026 contributed to promoting the Thai special exhibition.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.