K‑pop star performs in Siem Reap
K‑pop star DARA performed at Siem Reap’s Sangkranta festival, drawing excited fans and social posts warning attendees about heavy water‑splashing during the festivities. (x.com)
Sandara Park, the K-pop singer known as DARA, performed in Siem Reap during Khmer New Year festivities that ran from April 14 to 16. (tiktok.com) Promotional posts for the Ganzberg Super Idol Festival billed Sandara Park as an attraction in Siem Reap across all three festival dates, April 14, 15 and 16, 2026. One post paired her name with the beer brand’s “Ganzberg Super Idol Festival” label and the location “Siem Reap.” (tiktok.com) Her appearance landed in the middle of Choul Chnam Thmey, Cambodia’s three-day New Year holiday, which began on April 14. In Siem Reap, officials held the Angel Reception ceremony at 10:48 a.m. that day at the Royal Independence Gardens. (cambodianess.com) Siem Reap usually anchors Cambodia’s biggest New Year crowds through Angkor Sankranta, but authorities said the 2026 program was scaled down. Provincial officials said in March that water splashing, powder throwing and large concerts would be prohibited this year. (cambodianess.com) Even with those limits, the city still scheduled live music, folk games, boat races and religious ceremonies from April 13 to 16 in zones along the riverside and near the Royal Residence. Boat races were set for April 14 and 15 in front of the Cambodian People’s Party provincial office. (cambodianess.com) That mix helps explain the online clips around DARA’s visit: a pop guest star dropped into a festival that is both a public street celebration and a religious holiday marking the end of the harvest season and the start of the new year. Cambodianess reported that foreign visitors in Siem Reap were attending both ceremonies and festival events during the holiday. (cambodianess.com) Park, 41, is best known as a member of 2NE1, the South Korean girl group that debuted in 2009, and she has long had a following across Southeast Asia after first becoming famous in the Philippines in 2004. That regional profile helps explain why a Siem Reap festival would use her mononym, DARA, as a headline draw. (wikipedia.org) By the time New Year crowds filled Siem Reap this week, the city was still trying to balance celebration with restraint. DARA’s set gave fans a K-pop moment inside a holiday program that officials had deliberately kept smaller than in past years. (cambodianess.com)
