Along the 12-lane, 512-meter boulevard leading to the historic gate, walls of massive digital displays are permanently embedded into the cityscape. Office towers, commercial buildings and transit hubs double as screens. When BTS stages its comeback there, livestreamed on Netflix, the infrastructure will simply shift mode — from advertising and public messaging to performance.
The streets will not be rebuilt.
They will be activated.
For several hours, Seoul’s everyday screens will operate as a single, synchronized stage.
That ability — to reorganize public space around light and data at a moment’s notice — did not emerge by chance. It is the result of more than a century of technological accumulation, industrial policy and visual experimentation.
Korea’s outdoor advertising began modestly.
During the Joseon Dynasty, shopkeepers relied on wooden signboards and tavern markers. In 1886, commercial notices appeared in Hanseong Jubo, the country’s first modern newspaper. Advertising was informational, functional and limited in scale.
After the Korean War armistice in 1953, hand-painted storefront signs spread across a devastated capital. In a city rebuilding from rubble, a sign meant survival. Visibility meant existence.
The skyline changed in the late 1960s.
When restrictions on neon signage were lifted in 1967, red and blue lights spread across Myeong-dong and Jongno. Rooftops began to glow. Commercial districts acquired night identities. Neon became the visual language of industrial ambition.
It mirrored South Korea’s rapid economic ascent. Factories multiplied. Exports surged. Cities learned to shine.
For the first time, Seoul advertised itself after dark.
The next transformation arrived in the late 1980s.
Around the 1988 Seoul Olympics, full-color electronic billboards appeared. Static signs gave way to motion. Images began to circulate. Advertising became cinematic.
In the 2000s, LED technology and media facades accelerated that shift. Screens were no longer attached to buildings. They became part of them.
Architecture and media fused.
Few places capture this evolution better than COEX K-POP Square in Samseong-dong. Its 81-by-20-meter display dominates the district like an urban theater. By 2020, monthly advertising slots cost about 70 million won. Full-day exclusivity commanded similar prices.
What began as neon craftsmanship had become premium digital real estate.
The market followed the technology.
South Korea’s outdoor advertising sector has grown by about 7 percent annually since 2017. It surpassed 4 trillion won in 2022 and reached an estimated 4.3 trillion won in 2024. Digital out-of-home advertising has driven most of that growth.
Revenue from digital formats jumped nearly 34 percent in 2022 and rose again in 2023. Globally, the sector is projected to double from 2020 levels by 2027.
Once grouped with print and broadcast as “legacy media,” outdoor advertising has been rebuilt as data infrastructure.
Today, screens are traded through automated platforms. Campaigns are adjusted by time, traffic flow, weather and demographics. Exposure is measured, priced and optimized in real time.
The city itself has become a marketplace of attention.
Seen in that context, broadcasting a BTS concert across Gwanghwamun’s urban screens is not merely a fan-oriented experiment.
It is the visible outcome of decades of industrial strategy and technological layering.
On March 21, as BTS performs and Gwanghwamun’s screens light up in unison, Seoul will not simply host a show.
It will function as one.
In that glow, projected across glass and stone, will be the story of how Seoul made the night its stage.
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