BTS world tour comes to end in Seoul Tuesday

The world-famous boyband BTS wrapped up their world tour with the grand finale in Seoul on Tuesday.

The South Korean boy band has once again demonstrated that they are now one of the most popular pop stars in the world selling out tickets in a flash. According to Big Hit Entertainment, BTS’ “Love Yourself” world tour, which kicked off in Seoul on Aug. 25, 2018, took the group to 24 cities in 14 countries to hold 62 concerts, attracting some 2.06 million fans a year. This is four times the number of fans who joined “The Wings Tour” of BTS, through which the group held 40 concerts in 19 cities in 2017.

The group’s concerts in North America, Europe, and South America in May and June all topped the major charts of the United States such as Billboard’s Monthly Boxscore Series and Pollstar in terms of sales. Pollstar said back in June that BTS’ ticket sales of twelve concerts amounted to around 78 million U.S. dollars (90.8 billion won).

Though Big Hit has not disclosed the details, observers expect that the total sales of the boy band’s latest world tour will reach hundreds of billions of won or even exceed a trillion mark. Along with selling tickets, the company also sold BTS-related items at pop-up stores in the cities and made the group’s performance at London’s Wembly Stadium to be live broadcast on the Internet. Over 140,000 people around the world watched their performance in London via Naver’s V Live, even though they had to pay 33,000 won for watching it live.

The K-pop star has performed in North America (the United States, Canada), South America (Brazil), Europe (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France), and Asia (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Saudi Arabia). Wherever they went, fans camped for days to secure good seats at the concerts, leading to traffic control and the extended operation of public transportation. Such high popularity of the South Korean band also drew the attention of local media.

In particular, the group’s “Love Yourself: Speak Yourself,” which began in May, has reached the peak as an extension of the previous “Love Yourself” world tour. The band took their concerts to the next level by reserving stadiums that can accommodate over 30,000 people, and as a result, more than one million fans flocked to 20 concerts held in 10 cities.

BTS revisited cities such as London and Los Angeles in the grand stadium tour to meet the high demand of local fans who could not be satisfied with concerts held in arenas. This proves the explosive popularity of BTS in the world’s major cities that lead the trends of pop culture. The stadiums where the boy band performed were often the ones that represent the country or that are considered the shrine of pop culture.


imi@donga.com