2017 KBS Song Festival

On December 7, 2017, it was announced that the 8th KBS Song Festival will air on December 29 and will be held at KBS Hall.^[1] It was also revealed, that unlike previous years, this time the show will be in a smaller scale as a Music Bank end-of-year episode, due to the ongoing KBS strike.^[2][3]

On December 15, it was revealed that only eight teams have been invited to the show. The teams are BTS, Seventeen, Exo, Wanna One, Red Velvet, Mamamoo, Gfriend, and Twice, with additional participation of the mentors of KBS2's The Unit, including Hwang Chi Yeol, HyunA, and Taemin. It also stated that theme for this year will be "Concert and Confessions" and will feel like a mini-concert.^[4]

A few days later, it was announced that a representative from each group will be a host with the first half presented by Red Velvet's Irene, BTS's Jin, Exo's Chanyeol, and Twice's Sana and the second half presented by Mamamoo's Solar, Seventeen's Mingyu, Gfriend's Yerin, and Wanna One's Kang Daniel.^[5] On December 25, it was confirmed that Taemin will not be performing on this edition due to various circumstances.^[6]