Last weekend’s BTS live show swept South Korea into a rare, collective high. Staged in central Seoul’s Gwanghwamun and livestreamed globally on Netflix, the concert reached 300 million viewers across the world — a simultaneous celebration of BTS and a showcase of Seoul itself.
Beyond the spectacle, the group’s first full reunion performance in nearly four years underscored a deeper shift: live events are emerging as K-pop’s most powerful growth engine.
Even as artificial intelligence and digital technologies disrupt industries and displace jobs, live performance has proved strikingly resilient. The reason is straightforward. Virtual experiences, however sophisticated, still cannot replicate the immediacy, immersion and shared energy of being there.
The global music industry offers a clear benchmark. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, spanning 51 cities, generated roughly $2.5 billion in ticket and merchandise sales — a reminder that touring remains the industry’s most dependable revenue driver.
K-pop is following the same trajectory, but at a faster pace. Since the pandemic, live music has become the sector’s fastest-growing revenue stream. As streaming expands and physical album sales soften, income from concerts, tours and merchandise has surged.
Billboard data show that major agencies — HYBE, SM Entertainment and JYP Entertainment — sold 1.6 million tickets across 78 shows in the first half of last year alone, generating $228 million in tour revenue, up 79 percent on-year.
Those figures capture only part of the market. HYBE by itself staged 213 concerts last year, drawing 3.3 million fans. Tour revenue reached $537 million, accounting for roughly 30 percent of total sales, up from 12 percent just two years earlier. It now rivals the company’s music revenue — albums and streaming combined — and is poised to surpass it.
Momentum is building. Following the Seoul comeback, BTS is preparing its first world tour since completing military service. The “BTS World Tour Arirang,” scheduled for 79 shows across 34 cities, is expected to generate at least $1 billion from tickets, merchandise, VIP packages and livestream sales. Some industry observers say it could even challenge Swift’s touring record.
Other top-tier acts — Blackpink, Twice, Stray Kids and Seventeen — are also sustaining year-round global tours. Their impact extends well beyond ticket revenue. Promoters monetize fan events and merchandise, while host cities benefit from hotel bookings, flights and wider tourism spending.
The Seoul concert offered a vivid example. Hotels in the capital filled quickly, nearby businesses saw a surge in sales, and even regional cities reported an uptick in foreign visitors drawn by BTS.
Industry forecasts reflect this trajectory. Global K-pop concert revenue is projected to rise from $14 billion in 2024 to $22 billion by 2030. Yet the business is not without risks. Live events remain vulnerable to geopolitical shocks and environmental disruptions. The pandemic froze the sector for years, while China’s ban on K-pop performances following South Korea’s THAAD deployment in the mid-2010s remains in place.
Looking further ahead, artificial intelligence may present a new kind of competition. Concerts featuring AI-generated music and virtual performers — such as Hatsune Miku — have already built sizable fan bases, filling large venues with hologram-driven shows.
Still, technology has limits. AI can simulate sound and spectacle, but it struggles to reproduce the emotional immediacy and collective energy of a live crowd. That distinction is becoming more valuable, not less.
This is the logic of the “experience economy,” a concept advanced by U.S. consultants Joseph Pine and James Gilmore. As economies evolve from goods to services to experiences, and as digital technology makes content infinitely replicable, authentic human experiences grow scarcer — and more valuable. In music, buying a CD belongs to the product economy, streaming to the service economy, and attending a concert to the experience economy.
For BTS fans, the shift is tangible. They sustained the group through military service by streaming songs and buying albums. Now, gathered again in physical space, they reaffirm not only BTS’s status but also the power of shared experience itself.
Judging by the faces on screen in the heart of Seoul, the surge of joy and emotion was unmistakable — and, for now at least, beyond the reach of any algorithm.
*The author is a visiting professor at Ewha Womans University’s Graduate School of International Studies.
About the author
▷Former CNN Seoul bureau chief ▷Former ambassador for cultural cooperation at the Foreign Ministry ▷President of the Korea International Broadcasting Exchange Foundation (Arirang TV) ▷Former overseas publicity secretary at the presidential office ▷Former president of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club ▷Former New York Times reporter ▷Visiting professor at Ewha Womans University’s Graduate School of International Studies
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.