Department of Cultural Affairs

Taipei boasts a wealth of cultural resources and a robust industrial framework. Taipei City Government has long supported the development of pop music culture and in 2024 took a significant step forward with the launch of the new showcase brand TRENDY TAIPEI. The brand’s mission was to create an international urban music festival unique to Taipei, integrat-ing resources from public and private sectors and inviting widespread participation from civil society. 

The festival brought together areas including pop music, film and entertainment, performing arts, digital marketing, and technology, and featured 13 events and over 280 performances and forums, welcoming experts and performing groups from more than 40 countries. With more than 100,000 attendees, TRENDY TAIPEI marked a powerful step toward connecting Taipei’s music and cultural industries with the international stage.

This year, we continue building on those core values by unleashing fresh waves of innovation across Taipei. Themed TRENDY TAIPEI: It’s Now, the 2025 edition celebrates creativity and explosive energy in the here and now. 

From August 25 to September 7, the 14-day event will ignite the entire city and integrate mu-sic, fashion, technology, audiovisual, gaming, and art. Taipei will be transformed into a dy-namic laboratory of creativity, showcasing the city’s role as a future trendsetter.

At its core, 2025 TRENDY TAIPEI is driven by city branding and industry momentum. Three key dimensions—industry trends, the concert economy, and urban action—are inte-grated into a cohesive force that extends Taipei’s cultural depth and trendsetting spirit to the rest of the world. Our goal is to make Taipei both the origin and powerhouse of regional trends.

Last year, the Department of Economic Development’s StartSphere Taipei gained wide ac-claim as a large-scale platform that blended international exchange, innovative case studies, business matchmaking, and trend culture. The Taipei Music Center–hosted Taipei Music Expo brought together international music festival curators, agents, distributors, record labels, music tech startups, and producers to explore such topics as market trends, digital transformation, and cross-industry collaboration between music, film, and gaming. This year, we will carry these same values forward with another round of international forums to connect Taipei with global perspectives and future possibilities.

Also held at the Taipei Music Center was Jam Jam Asia, a pan-Asian, cross-border music fes-tival and major highlight spun off from the Taipei Music Expo that won over fans with unfor-gettable performances. Building on that momentum, this year’s concert offerings will be fully upgraded, with events at the Taipei Music Center and some of the biggest performances in the Taipei Arena. 

We’re working with top-tier local production and creative teams and world-class performers to deliver a wide range of high-quality pop music experiences. Through TRENDY TAIPEI, we aim to broaden Taipei’s musical footprint and fuel its cultural and economic vibrancy, po-sitioning the city as the new epicenter of Asia’s concert economy. 

The focus of TRENDY TAIPEI’s third dimension, Urban Action, is to rally even more of Taipei’s Live House music venues to join the celebration and offer the people of Taipei an even richer variety of live performances. Venue owners are preparing stellar lineups and dy-namic shows to light up Taipei’s nightlife during the festival.

This year, the urban action initiative is also introducing the Taipei City Sound Project (臺北城市聲音行動), where the public are invited to help collect the Sounds of Taipei (臺北的聲音). People are encouraged to ue sonic snapshots from everyday life to share Taipei’s unique sto-ries and express their personal impressions of the city. Once again, music and sound come to-gether to channel Taipei’s pulse and energy.

TRENDY TAIPEI is more than just a festival—it’s Taipei’s flagship platform for cultural pol-icy and urban branding. With this open, diverse stage, the City Government aims to strength-en the synergy between trend culture and innovation industries, spark cross-disciplinary crea-tivity, and bring cultural ideas to life.

Looking ahead, we will continue to integrate private resources and international exchange op-portunities to expand Taipei’s cultural influence and establish the city as Asia’s trendsetting hub and creative incubator. This is Taipei’s moment to shine — TRENDY TAIPEI: It’s now!