K-pop acts go on the road again, performing overseas

Industry

Published: 14 Apr. 2022, 17:42

K-pop acts go on the road again, performing overseas

Girl group Twice gives a performance during its U.S. tour held in February. The band will perform again at the Banc of California Stadium on May 14 in Los Angeles. [JYP ENTERTAINMENT

K-pop groups are resuming concerts overseas after halting tours for two years due to the pandemic.

The number of overseas concertgoers this year is forecast to be down more than 50 percent from pre-pandemic levels.

Boy band Stray Kids will tour 10 cities outside of Korea after holding three concerts in Seoul from April 29 to May 1. This will be its first world tour in two years and five months.

The band, having landed on the Billboard 200 albums chart for the first time earlier this month, will start their overseas tour in Kobe, Japan, then travel to Chicago and Los Angeles.

Girl group Twice recently finished a U.S. tour in February and will travel back for an encore performance.

From April 23 to 25, the group will hold a concert at Tokyo Dome to celebrate the fifth anniversary of its Japanese debut. Twice will then fly to Los Angeles and perform at the Banc of California Stadium on May 14.

It will be the first time for a K-pop girl group to perform at a large stadium in North America. The venue can hold up to 22,000 people.

Boy band Ateez, having made its debut in 2018, is aiming for European fans. It will start its tour in Madrid, Spain, on April 23 and then travel to five other cities, including London, Paris and Berlin, for nine performances.

YG Entertainment's Treasure, a 12-member boy band, has a Japanese concert scheduled for the latter half of the year. It will perform 17 times in six cities in Japan in November, starting with the Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center in Sapporo.

Boy band BTS gives a performance in an offline concert held on April 8 in Las Vegas. The band will perform again on April 15 and 16. [BIG HIT MUSIC]

BTS performed in Las Vegas on April 8 and 9, a month after its Seoul concert. The band will perform again twice, on April 15 and 16, at Allegiant Stadium, which can accommodate up to 65,000 people. About 200,000 will be able to stream the concert.

A total of 2.85 million people are expected to go to K-pop concerts outside of Korea this year, according to a study by the Hyundai Motor Securities. That's 43 percent of the number from 2019, before the pandemic.

Of that number, 1.27 million people will go to a concert by a group signed with HYBE, 630,000 to concerts by SM Entertainment acts, 500,000 to concerts by JYP Entertainment groups and 300,000 to concerts by YG Entertainment performers.

SM Entertainment is home to boy band NCT and girl group Red Velvet. Stray Kids and Twice are signed with JYP Entertainment.

Admission prices to concerts have increased compared to the pre-pandemic period. According to Live Nation, the biggest concert organizer in the world, concert ticket prices have gone up by more than 20 percent compared to 2019.

It is forecast that forty percent of all K-pop act tickets sold overseas will be sold in North America.

Lower attendance doesn't necessarily mean lower revenue, because concerts are streamed more these days.

During the pandemic, singers were invariably livestreamed, and now that format is standard.

"Entertainment companies can now plan different revenue models from performances," said Lee Hye-in, a researcher at Yuanta Securities.

"For offline concerts, money has to be spent on venue rental, music equipment and on-site staff. Online concerts cost less to organize and can attract fans from countries that singers can't easily travel to."

BY BAE JUNG-WON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]