K-pop supergroup BTS is coming to Toronto and fans are freaking out

Militant fans of the K-pop outfit BTS—Bangtan Sonyeondan—got some thrilling news this week: the seven-member supergroup announced a 79-stop world tour after a four-year hiatus, giving BTS’s obsessed fan base, ARMY (which stands for “Adorable Representative for MC Youth”) some serious permission to dance. And the tour will see not one but two stops in Toronto later this summer.

For the K-pop ignorant, here’s a speed-run history of BTS. In 2010, Korean producer and songwriter Bang Si-hyuk assembled Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jung Kook as a Korean boy band under his new label, Big Hit Entertainment. Unlike bigger, state-supported ventures, the label encouraged its artists to write socially critical lyrics.

After seven years of putting in the work, BTS found global acclaim in 2017, when their springy earworm “DNA” hit the Billboard Hot 100. From there, the hits kept coming. Their first all-English single, “Dynamite,” came out in 2020, and “My Universe,” featuring Coldplay, was released the following year. Between 2020 and 2021, they scored six number-one singles—a feat previously achieved only by the Beatles.

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Et voilà, they became the highest-grossing Korean touring act of all time. But, in June of 2022, weeks after a new album drop and a visit to the White House in honour of Asian American Heritage Month, BTS announced on its fan platform, Weverse, that they would be taking an “off period.” As a result, BTS’s parent company HYBE’s stock fell about 30 per cent.

In the video, the members said they wanted to work on themselves—but they were also required to complete South Korea’s compulsory military service, which tends to be 18 months long. The boys traded their shiny locks and cool clothes for close-shaven crew cuts and camo duds.

This week, the group broke the news that Toronto will host two back-to-back BTS concerts at the Rogers Stadium near Downsview Park on August 22 and 23. The BBC reports that the band will be dragging their own 360-degree stage to every show for maximum fan proximity.

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Tickets for the show go on sale to the general public on January 24, but anyone willing to enlist in the ARMY (or those already serving) will have access to tickets two days prior. According to Billboard, Big Hit and HYBE stand to make over $1 billion (US) in ticket and merch sales, and fans are expected to be Swiftie-level fervent—meaning those looking to see the septet should get ready to stand at strict attention on Ticketmaster with their wallets ready for a reduction in rank.