When offline viewing reservations opened at 8 p.m. on Feb. 23, traffic from around the world flooded the booking site, NOL Ticket, which briefly crashed.
Kim, a 29-year-old office worker, said he logged in 30 minutes early but the screen froze at the opening time. “All I could see was a notice saying there were about 30,000 people waiting,” he said, adding he ultimately failed to secure a ticket.
The waiting number later exceeded 100,000, and all seats sold out in about 40 minutes. Despite the show being free, posts offering scalped tickets for hundreds of thousands of won appeared on social media soon after reservations opened.
Organizers said the venue will be built around a main stage installed across from the Gwanghwamun Woldae platform, with about 15,000 seats in total. Standing and reserved sections will be mixed near the statue of Adm. Yi Sun-sin. Of the standing-area tickets closest to the stage, 2,000 will be allocated by lottery among those who preordered the new album. Large LED screens will be placed in limited-view areas, and some pedestrian movement will be restricted under safety guidelines.
The event will also be carried online. Netflix will exclusively livestream the Gwanghwamun performance worldwide as its first live event in South Korea.
A Netflix official said it would be “a true live moment” in which viewers around the world share the same experience at the same time, beyond language and cultural barriers.
Ticketing also began Feb. 25 for “live viewing” screenings tied to concerts scheduled for April in Goyang and Tokyo, with organizers preparing to host fans at about 3,800 locations across 80 countries and regions.
Travel indicators have also jumped. Hotels.com said that in the 48 hours after the tour plan was announced, overseas searches for trips to Seoul rose 155% from the previous week. Searches for Busan, which is set to host a June concert, surged 2,375%, driven by major Asian markets including Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Domestic searches also climbed sharply, up 190% for Seoul and 3,855% for Busan.
The show is built around the concept of the new album, “Arirang,” with production designed to highlight Korean aesthetics around Gyeongbokgung Palace and Gwanghwamun. Organizers said the opening will feature the members marching along the “King’s Road” from Geunjeongmun Gate to the Woldae platform. The stage will use the Woldae, restored after 100 years, as a backdrop. A new-song performance with an Arirang traditional music ensemble and dancers is planned, along with an evening media facade projected across the Gwanghwamun wall.
BTS will release its fifth full-length album, “Arirang,” worldwide at 1 p.m. on March 20, the day before the concert. The 14 new tracks will be unveiled live for the first time at Gwanghwamun on March 21. A Netflix documentary, “BTS: The Return,” about the album’s production will be released on March 27. The group is then set to begin a large-scale world tour in April starting in Goyang, with 82 shows across 34 cities.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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