HYBE pre-launched its personalized K-pop merchandise service, Weverse by Fans, during its yearly music festival, the 2023 Weverse Con Festival, held Saturday and Sunday at the Olympic Park, in southern Seoul.

“Weverse by Fans is Weverse’s upcoming service, where fans can easily create their own official merch without using a special program,” Weverse explained.

Weverse by Fans, set to officially launch in the second half of this year, allows users to create personalized K-pop merchandise, including t-shirts, tumblers, acrylic stands and more, within the existing Weverse Shop smartphone applications.

During the two-day pre-release period, fans were able to use the Weverse Shop applications to customize, purchase and collect personalized merchandise of the nine artists — Baekho, fromis_9, Hwang Min-hyun, Enhypen, NewJeans, Tomorrow X Together, Le Sserafim, &TEAM and Xia — who were part of the festival lineup.

Customizations available on-site were limited to simple logo placements on t-shirts and tumblers.

Once officially launched, adding personalized texts, official artist photos and image clips will be made available, with customizable images restricted to artist-approved images for copyright protection, according to HYBE.

The personalized merchandise service saw positive reception at the festival, with attendees forming long lines to buy merchandise.

“Receptions for Weverse by Fans exceeded our expectations,” Weverse’s representative at the festival said, adding that the company had to bring in additional merchandise to meet the high demand.

“We have already developed more items [that will be available for customization], which we will add in the future.”

The service will officially launch by the end of 2023, and the users will be able to have personalized merchandise delivered directly to the door, according to Weverse.

A customizable t-shirt was priced at 42,000 won ($32).

Weverse’s music festival saw HYBE artists, including Tomorrow X Together, Enhypen, NewJeans, Le Sserafim, fromis_9 and more, alongside artists from other agencies participating in Weverse, such as Zico, BTOB, Jeremy Zucker and Lightsum, come together for a two-day music festival at the 88 Lawn Field and KSPO Dome.

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]