SEOUL – BTS are planning their biggest tour ever.
The South Korean supergroup temporarily disbanded as their members undertook their mandatory military service.
With that done, BTS have been working with their agency Hybe on a new album over the past few months. The album, the group’s first in six years, will be released at the end of March 2026.
It will tee up the group’s first proper tour since 2019. They plan to perform about 65 dates all over the world, including more than 30 shows in North America, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Details regarding the dates and scale of BTS’ new world tour remain unconfirmed,” Hybe’s Big Hit Music said in a statement. “The dates you mentioned are not the latest number we are discussing.”
BTS brought K-pop to the mainstream and was the top act in the world in 2020 and 2021, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
The group had planned to tour in 2020, but could not because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It staged a dozen shows across four cities in 2021 and 2022, their final appearances as a group before their members entered military service.
The band’s final performances took place in Las Vegas in April 2022. The shows grossed US$18 million (S$23.3 million), according to Pollstar.
All told, BTS grossed nearly US$300 million as a touring act between 2015 and 2022, according to Pollstar. But those are only the dates the group reported to the data collector. They performed many more shows.
Their return will test how much enthusiasm remains and reveal whether fans have moved on. BLOOMBERG