The 2025 Melon Music Awards (MMA) is making a grand return to Seoul’s Gocheok Sky Dome for the first time in three years.
On July 9, Kakao Entertainment confirmed that the 17th Melon Music Awards 2025 (MMA 2025) will be held on Saturday, December 20, at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. Widely known as one of K-pop’s biggest year-end music awards, the MMA honors artists based on Melon’s trusted streaming data, fan votes, and expert judging.
Since its launch in 2005 as an online-only event and expansion to an offline festival in 2009, the Melon Music Awards has grown into a must-see celebration for K-pop fans. Unlike other K-pop award ceremonies held abroad, MMA is consistently hosted in Korea. It has earned the nickname “the mainstay of K-pop festivals.”
For this year’s show, MMA 2025 is updating its criteria for its top prize, TOP 10. The new method will factor in 60% music streams, 20% fan votes, and 20% judging — compared to last year’s 80% streams and 20% voting. This shift reflects how fans consume music on Melon and to ensure that impact, buzz, and song quality are fairly recognized.
The Millions TOP 10 award, which celebrates albums that entered Melon’s Hall of Fame, will continue using the 80% streams and 20% voting formula.
In another change, only paid Melon members will now have priority access to ticket reservations. This way, organizers will reward loyal subscribers and block scalping through illegal channels.
Fans can look forward to plenty of pre-events leading up to the Melon Music Awards 2025. Melon plans to boost excitement with exclusive ticket giveaways, special rewards, and interactive voting. Details for voting on the TOP 10 and other categories will be released soon on Melon’s official MMA 2025 page.
Last year, aespa bagged three Daesangs (Grand Prize), including Album of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Song of the Year. Record of the Year (Daesang) was received by (G)I-DLE (now renamed as i-dle). K-pop acts such as ATEEZ, PLAVE, QWER, BIBI, BOYNEXTDOOR, TWS, and more keep the crowd entertained with energetic performances.
As we have entered the second half of 2025, the most prestigious year-award ceremonies have announced dates and initial lineups. The Fact Music Awards (TMA 2025) is scheduled to be held on September 9. On the other hand, MAMA Awards 2025 will light up Hong Kong on November 28-29.
Alongside K-pop’s biggest stars, fans are also preparing for the packed year-end award season by streaming, voting, and cheering on their favorites.