Thousands of fans packed Rumsey Playfield in Central Park for WayV's first-ever New York City concert, where the five-member Chinese pop group debuted material from its new album Vision while performing intricate choreography in both Mandarin and English. The show marked a milestone for a group that officially debuted in 2019 but had never before visited New York City.
The concert was part of the 40th annual Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage festival and was presented by the China Institute, according to amNewYork. The pairing carried extra historical weight: the China Institute, the oldest US nonprofit dedicated to US-China cultural and educational exchange, was founded in New York in 1926 by American educators John Dewey and Paul Monroe alongside Chinese scholars Hu Shih and Kuo Ping-wen, and this year's show fell during the organization's centennial, according to China Daily.
SummerStage itself has deep roots in the city's outdoor performance scene. The festival premiered in June 1986 with a debut show by the Sun Ra Arkestra at Central Park's Naumburg Bandshell, per City Parks Foundation, and now presents more than 60 free and benefit shows across 13 New York City parks each year. Hoodline covered the broader 2025 SummerStage lineup in a piece on free outdoor concerts across the boroughs. Demand for the WayV show was steep enough that City Parks Foundation instituted a same-day wristband distribution system starting at 11 a.m. at 72nd Street and Fifth Avenue, guaranteeing entry for early arrivals ahead of the 6 p.m. doors.
Post-Orientalism Opens the Night
New York-based electronic trio THE EITHER opened the SummerStage bill, performing a style the group calls Post-Orientalism, blending distorted electric pipa with Chinese opera-inspired vocals. The band was formed in New York in 2017 around a mission to combine traditional Eastern instrumentation with futuristic electronic rock, according to City Parks Foundation.
Once WayV took the stage, the group leaned into its new record. Vision, released two days before the concert, spans seven tracks across C-pop, R&B, and hip-hop, and features both Mandarin and English versions of its title song, per the group's album rollout reported by STARNEWS. The album incorporates traditional Chinese instruments alongside hip-hop and jungle beats, amNewYork reports, and each track is built around homophonic Chinese characters carrying distinct meanings — kite, source, completeness, and beginning — a structural device the same outlet describes as central to how the project explores Chinese identity.
Members Reflect on the Songs That Matter Most
Group leader Kun pointed to Be Alright as a song with special meaning to him, while also singling out Phantom as a track that reflects the group's powerful performance style, per amNewYork's account of the show. Xiaojun named Face to Face — described as WayV's first ballad, performed entirely in Mandarin — and Yangyang cited Love Talk, a song the group previously performed at KCON in Los Angeles.
Hendery pointed to two songs: Stand By Me and All My Youth, which he called deeply emotional. When WayV performed All My Youth at Rumsey Playfield, fans in the crowd sang along loudly enough that Xiaojun pulled out his in-ear monitor to hear them directly. That moment felt so magical, Xiaojun told amNewYork, saying he felt touched by the response.
The moment carried extra resonance given how long the group's members have worked together. WayV's members began training in Korea as teenagers and have known each other for more than a decade, according to the outlet's report, with the group describing communication as central to how they address problems and support one another.
A Lineup in Transition
The Central Park show arrived amid significant changes to WayV's roster. On July 8, SM Entertainment announced that original member Winwin had mutually agreed to end his exclusive contract effective the following day, officially closing out his run with both NCT and WayV, according to The Korea Herald. Winwin had already been on hiatus from group music activities since 2021 to focus on acting work in China.
Separately, member Ten concluded his exclusive solo contract with SM Entertainment in April to launch his own agency, ILLIMNT, while maintaining an agreement to keep participating in WayV group activities, per Forbes. Despite those shifts, amNewYork describes WayV as a five-member group, with Hendery telling the outlet that WayV consists of its members plus its fandom, known as Wayzenni, and that he would stand by them. A Wayzenni fan was among those who attended the SummerStage performance, per the same report.
From Central Park to a New Asia Tour
Yangyang told amNewYork that performing in Central Park, one of New York's most famous places, felt like a blessing, and said the group hopes to return to the city. He added that WayV aims to meet and connect with fans wherever they are, while the group broadly said it wants audiences to see WayV as confident and diverse and hopes to introduce more listeners worldwide to Chinese musical traditions.
The New York stop feeds directly into WayV's next chapter. The group will open its third Asia concert tour, titled BORN THIS Way, with two launch shows at KBS Arena in Seoul on September 12 and 13, featuring members Kun, Xiaojun, Hendery, and Yangyang, according to Soompi. The group's commercial track record heading into that tour is strong: its winter 2025 mini-album, Eternal White, achieved Gold Certification on China's QQ Music after surpassing 250,000 yuan in digital sales and reached number one on Apple Music's Top Albums chart in nine regions, per STARNEWS.
