KATHMANDU, July 15: Three teams from Nepal have qualified for the Korea Preliminary Round of the 2023 K-pop World Festival after finishing top three among the ten shortlisted groups in the regional preliminary round of the event held in Kathmandu on Saturday.

Organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Nepal, the preliminary round of the 2023 K-Pop World Festival was conducted through online video submissions. Over 40 teams had registered for the contest and submitted their videos featuring a K-Pop song of their choice before the June 26 deadline. The top 10 teams were announced on July 3 and the finalists were announced at the Nepal Academy Hall, Kamaladi on Saturday.

The top position was secured by Minimare, a seven-member group, who delivered an impressive performance of BTS's "Run." Similarly, Hearts To Beat (H2B), a talented group of five, who captivated the judges with their rendition of Le Sserafim's "Antifragile" finished second. Menma, a talented duo, secured the third position with their exceptional vocal rendition of Bolbbalgan4's "To My Youth." The top three teams were awarded cash prizes of Rs 50,000, Rs 40,000, and Rs 30,000, respectively.

The K-Pop World Festival is an annual event that originated in 2011 in Changwon, South Korea. K-Pop World Festival was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the final round of the 2021 event was conducted online. The 2022 K-Pop World Festival is finally being held in offline format in South Korea after a gap of three years. The Embassy of the Republic of Korea had previously hosted the K-Pop World Festival in Kathmandu in 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022. In 2016, Mongolian Namja represented Nepal in the final round of the K-Pop World Festival in Korea.