Arena (or Club Arena) was a dance club that opened in 2014 in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu.It was known as a TV and sports celebrity hang-out, had a reputation for a very strict dress code, and could accommodate 700 guests with separate EDM and hip hop dance floors.Jessica Oak at Billboard wrote, "Seungri has forged and built an empire all his own during his 13 years in the industry.
When Kim's involvement in the scandal became public, Jangsu Seoul Makkoli, a makgeolli company, hurriedly made an announcement, to allay rumors and avoid a boycott, that Kim was not a major owner in the company, but one of 51 shareholders, with a 2 percent stake.
Kim's popular upright public image, with his distinguished appearance and attendance at a prestigious American college, had always contrasted with the more liberal "free-spirited" image of Jung's, but the criminal investigation had now linked them.
They quit all their television programs, including 2 Days & 1 Night, where they were cast members with Jung.
On International Women's Day on March 8, the scandal led to a street protest in Gangnam against the Burning Sun and other nightclubs, calling for an end to what the protesters called a culture that treats women as sexual objects.
The sound system was set up by Funktion-One, a specialized overseas company, whose sound expert, Tony Andrews, was invited to the club for sound tuning.
Seungri served as one of the DJ's, along with other local and visiting guest artists like R3hab.The nightclub business was not Seungri's first business venture, it had been preceded by several: a Japanese ramen restaurant chain, cosmetics, a Belgian waffle cafe, and a record company co-founded with his agency YG Entertainment.In November 2018, he entered the IT sector when he became the Creative Director and model for Head Rock VR, a franchise brand of the AR product company Social Network and affiliate Mediafront; and assisted in the opening of the Headrock VR theme park in Singapore.Seungri said his popularity had been a business asset and he had looked for partners that would benefit from it." On one entertainment show, he talked about his many business ventures, lamenting that he made one hundredth the money fellow group member G-Dragon was making, while putting in more effort, as G-Dragon's money was coming from songwriting royalties.After his involvement in the scandal, a popular culture critic in Seoul, Lee Moon-won, said "the multilingual Seungri", with "has multiple business interests" had been seen as an “ideal cultural export”, deemed to be a hard-worker by his fans.Eddy Kim had studied for a year at the Berklee College of Music, and was serving in the military, when other officers suggested he should try out for the show, where he made it to the top six, while an active soldier.