KiiiKiii Take a Grand Prize at KGMA as MONSTA X Win Best Group and DAYOUNG and IVE Double Up

Disclosure: First Press operates independently but shares ownership ties with EG Management and LUSIVEX. EG Management is a US management company for international artists, in particular Asian and Korean artists, founded by Eshy Gazit, US managing partner for BTS from 2016 to 2018, working alongside Big Hit Entertainment, and US partner for Starship Entertainment since 2018, among others.

KiiiKiii closed the 2026 Korea Grand Music Awards on Sunday with a share of the Grand Honor's Choice, one of three Grand awards handed out on the show's second night at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. The group added Best Music and Best Streaming Song.

The win headed a strong weekend for one company. MONSTA X took Best Group, the only winner in that category across both nights. DAYOUNG won Best Solo and Style Icon on Saturday. IVE won Best Music and Best Trend Setter on Sunday. That makes nine awards for four acts, all of them on the Starship Entertainment roster, going by the label lines on The Phase, FLIRTY, Looks Can Kill and Delulu Pack.

The KGMA is in its third year. Ilgan Sports, which created the show in 2024, hosts it and much of the Korean coverage cited here comes from its reporters. Chart and album data came from Hanteo, Genie, FLO and Bugs, with fan voting on the Coogoong app.

KiiiKiii's three awards at KGMA

A year ago the same show gave KiiiKiii its IS Rising Star award. Its 2026 chart run began with "404 (New Era)," the title track of January's Delulu Pack, reached No. 1 on the Melon Top 100 16 days after release, and later topped the Circle monthly chart, according to Ilgan Sports.

The group followed it in August with the mini album WhyKiiiKiii, and its title track "Pop Off Pop Off" reached No. 1 on Spotify's Korea chart. Best Streaming Song had already been announced that morning on the show's official social media.

Accepting Best Music, the members thanked fans, called TIKI, for the response to "404" this year. Back on stage for the Grand Honor's Choice, they promised to practice harder and bring better work and performances.

MONSTA X win Best Group, with Shownu out

MONSTA X were a member short at Gocheok. Shownu missed the show for health reasons, and Ilgan Sports reported that Hyungwon, Minhyuk and Joohoney would attend in his place.

The absence also touched a second award. Shownu X Hyungwon, the unit behind the May release LOVE ME, won Best Music, and Hyungwon collected it alone. He told the crowd that Shownu was unwell, said he regretted that the stage the duo had prepared could not go ahead, and promised to come back with him next year.

Best Group is a repeat for MONSTA X in 2026. The group won the same category at the Golden Disc Awards in Taipei in January. In October it also ranked first among male idol groups at Tenasia's 15th Top Ten Awards, which picks global artists for the first half of the year. The group was playing North America on its THE X : NEXUS world tour at the time. The group released The Phase, led by "MAGIC," on September 4.

DAYOUNG and IVE each take two

DAYOUNG, who went solo in 2025, won the female Best Solo trophy for a second straight year. "Thanks to winning the Best Female Solo Artist award at the 'KGMA' a year ago, the songs I worked so hard on were able to be released this year," she said, according to Edaily's English report. She added, "Thanks to this award I received today, I think I'll be able to release new songs again next year." Her 2026 releases include "What's a girl to do" in April and FLIRTY with Jay Park in August. Style Icon had been announced before the ceremony.

IVE's two awards arrived two weeks after its fifth mini album. Looks Can Kill came out October 26 and sold 714,887 copies in its first week on Hanteo, up 7.14 percent from February's REVIVE+ and the first time since October 2023 that an IVE album outsold the one before it in its opening week. Liz, who co-hosted Music Day with actor Kim Jae Won, accepted Best Music for the group and credited fans for a run of releases from "BANG BANG" to "Looks Can Kill." She also won Best OST for "Princess Catch! Teenieping," from the animation of the same name, a trophy outside the nine counted above.

More shows follow quickly. IVE and KiiiKiii are both on the lineups for the Melon Music Awards on November 15 and the MAMA Awards at Kyocera Dome on November 21. MONSTA X, DAYOUNG and KiiiKiii are all booked for the Asia Artist Awards in Kaohsiung on December 5 and 6, per Soompi's year-end guide.