A K-pop festival hosted by South Korea's leading content and media company, CJ E&M, will open on the west and east coasts of the United States this weekend.

Launched in 2012, KCON is North America's largest annual Korean cultural festival that incorporates K-pop concerts with a marketplace showcasing a variety of Korean products and trends.

Last year's event attracted some 43,000 fans to Los Angeles.

This year's festival is set to be held at the Staples Center in downtown L.A. from July 31 to Aug. 2 as in previous years but will make its eastern debut a week later. The event is scheduled to be held at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Aug. 8.

Organizers expect the events will draw about 70,000 visitors in total.

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The L.A. event will feature some of the hottest K-pop artists, such as Super Junior, Sistar, Block B, Shinhwa, AOA, Roy Kim and Got7 while Girls' Generation, Teen Top and Vixx will show up in the New Jersey event.

"My Love from the Stars" actor Kim Soo-hyun and two other actors, Son Ho-jun and Daniel Henney, will also fly to Los Angeles to attend the festival. They are scheduled to hold separate events to meet their fans there, according to the organizers.

"By hosting events on both the west and east coasts of America, KCON 2015 USA will show our global business partners that now is the time for K-culture and KCON to shine as a new business model," said Shin Hyung-kwan, a CJ E&M executive.

Sponsored by Toyota, KCON 2015 USA will showcase all fields of hallyu, the Asianwide popularity of Korean pop culture, through such activities as a K-pop dance cover competition, make-up tutorials and Korean language classes.

Throughout the convention, dozens of small- and medium-sized Korean companies hoping to advance to the U.S. market will be invited to set up booths for promoting their brands and products, organizers said. (Yonhap)