HYBE is holding a 2026 edition of its Next New Creator audition, a global search for pop music producers.<\/p>\n
Producers who come through the competition will get the chance to work across four of the South Korean company\u2019s labels.<\/p>\n
Those labels are Big Hit Music, BELIFT LAB, Pledis Entertainment,\u00a0YX Labels, alongside its HYBE Japan division.<\/p>\n
HYBE has run the Next New Creator project since 2016, though in previous years it has been hosted by a single label at a time.<\/p>\n
The company announced the audition on Tuesday (July 7), and, per the report, is seeking track producers who specialize in pop.<\/p>\n
The competition is open to applicants aged 19 or older, regardless of gender, career or nationality.<\/p>\n
Both individuals and teams can enter, and HYBE is asking applicants to submit demo files that best showcase their work.<\/p>\n
Online applications will run from Tuesday (July 14) to Wednesday (August 12), according to the outlet.<\/p>\n
Successful applicants will receive a creative support fund of 5 million won (approximately USD $3,270 at current exchange rates).<\/p>\n
HYBE says it is looking for producers ready to showcase their \u201cboundless potential and talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
HYBE, formerly Big Hit Entertainment, first launched the Next New Creator project in 2016 and says it has since discovered producers in Korea and overseas<\/a>.<\/p>\n HYBE has described the audition as a search for a producer \u201cready to step onto the global music industry stage,\u201d and says the project has \u201cprovided opportunities for them to present their musical prowess.\u201d<\/p>\n Applicants who clear an internal screening by HYBE\u2018s producers proceed to a main competition, which can include a song camp, with the winner offered the chance to become an in-house producer.<\/p>\n One earlier entrant, ADORA, was recruited through the 2016 edition and went on to work as an in-house producer at Big Hit Music on records by BTS.<\/p>\n In previous years the audition was run by one label at a time: Big Hit Music hosted the 2021 and 2023 editions, while BELIFT LAB ran it in 2025.<\/p>\n The 2026 edition instead pools the search across multiple labels within HYBE\u2018s multi-label system.<\/p>\n Those are\u00a0Big Hit Music,\u00a0BELIFT LAB,\u00a0Pledis Entertainment\u00a0in Korea,\u00a0YX Labels, alongside company\u2019s HYBE Japan division.<\/p>\n BELIFT LAB, launched in 2018 as a joint venture with CJ ENM, has been wholly owned by HYBE since it bought out CJ ENM\u2019s stake in November 2023.<\/p>\n YX Labels is the Tokyo-based division that HYBE rebranded from HYBE Labels Japan in February 2025<\/a>, and is home to the group &TEAM.<\/p>\n The rebrand was part of a company-wide reorganization HYBE calls a \u201cmulti-home, multi-genre strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n Under it, HYBE has said it is building an \u201cindependent multi-label system\u201d in Japan.<\/p>\n HYBE has framed the Next New Creator audition as part of a wider push to build production capabilities across its labels while respecting what it calls their creative autonomy.<\/p>\n HYBE\u2018s rivals take different routes to developing production talent.<\/p>\n SM Entertainment<\/a>, the company behind aespa and NCT, runs SM Universe<\/a>, a fee-based academy it launched in Seoul in 2022 with a major in producing.<\/p>\n A semester at SM Universe reportedly costs up to 10 million won (around $6,550), whereas HYBE\u2018s audition is free to enter and carries a cash prize.<\/p>\n Some rival agencies fold a dedicated producer track into their auditions, among them KQ Entertainment, the label behind ATEEZ.<\/p>\n HYBE\u2018s Next New Creator, by contrast, is a standalone search aimed specifically at producers.Music Business Worldwide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HYBE is holding a 2026 edition of its Next New Creator audition, a global search for pop music…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-514030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}