The first BTS tour as seven since Permission to Dance on Stage opened in Goyang on 9 April 2026, three weeks after the album it is named after. Arirang takes its title from the best-known Korean folk song, and the tour carries that idea around the world: 88 shows in 34 cities and 23 countries, every one of them in a stadium, until March 2027.
On 28 October, the day this story went up, they played the first of three nights at the MorumBIS in São Paulo: show number 60. Here is how the first 59 went.
America, night after night
After Goyang and two nights at the Tokyo Dome, the tour went to North America and stayed there for most of the spring and the whole of August. Tampa, El Paso, Mexico City, the Bay Area and four nights in Las Vegas came first. Then, after Korea and Europe, the stadiums of the East Coast, Texas, Toronto and Chicago.
It ended in Los Angeles with four nights at SoFi Stadium in early September. According to BigHit Music, those four shows drew 282,000 people. Over 31 sold-out shows in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the tour reached about 1.9 million fans.
No pop group had reached $500 million on one tour before. Until now the list was all rock bands.
The $500 million record
At the end of September Billboard's Boxscore confirmed what the crowds already suggested. The tour had passed $500 million in ticket sales, which makes BTS the seventh act ever to reach that on one tour, and the first pop group. The six before them were all rock bands.
August alone brought in $171.7 million from twelve shows, the second-best month in Boxscore history. Only Beyoncé, in August 2023, did better.
Europe: ten shows, five cities
The European leg was short and full. Two nights each in Madrid, Brussels, London, Munich and Paris, and about 717,000 people in total, according to BigHit Music. In London, the two nights at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium drew around 130,000, the biggest crowd the stadium had seen since it opened in 2019. In Munich BTS became the first Korean act to play the Allianz Arena.
Paris was the finale, at the Stade de France, where the 2019 European tour had ended too. Both nights drew 92,000 people each, the largest single-show crowd BTS have ever played to. On the first night President Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron were in the stadium.
We were there
This one is personal. We saw four of those ten European shows: Madrid, Brussels and both nights in Paris. Getting the tickets was a show of its own. On the day the sale opened we sat ready with several laptops at once, and we came away with VIP tickets with soundcheck for Madrid and Brussels, and platinum seats in Paris.
Madrid was our first BTS concert, and it fills a whole day before a single song is played: pop-up stores, merch hunting, and thousands of fans around the Metropolitano. Then the soundcheck. We were face to face with the seven of them, close and for longer than we had dared to hope, and Jimin waved at us. We will not forget that one.
We were face to face with the seven of them, and Jimin waved at us.
Brussels gave us the members up close again, and a lesson in stadium exits. The street out of King Baudouin Stadium is narrow for that many people leaving at once. We stood still for an hour, then spent three more hours stuck in the car park. Seeing BTS made up for most of it.
Paris was meant to be one night. We had planned a short trip, then thought: we are in Paris anyway, so why not stay longer? We arrived on the Friday morning, BTS were playing that evening as well, and at the last minute we bought two more tickets, with good seats too. It was the night the Macrons were in the stadium. Not a moment of regret.
Where they go next
After São Paulo the tour moves to Asia: Kaohsiung in November, then Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta in December. In February 2027 it is Melbourne and Sydney, then Hong Kong, and the last three shows are near Manila in March. When the tour passed $500 million, Billboard expected the roughly 40 shows still to come to take it past $1 billion.
Want to keep track? On our BTS page you can press Follow the tour. A small sign in the corner of every page then shows where they are, and a tap gives you the next six stops.
Sources Wikipedia: Arirang World Tour, Korea JoongAng Daily: BTS becomes first pop act to gross $500 million on a single tour, The Kyunghyang Shinmun: Arirang tour surpasses $500 million, Korea JoongAng Daily: the North American leg and SoFi Stadium, Korea JoongAng Daily: the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium record, Korea JoongAng Daily: the Paris finale, Star News: the European leg, Bandwagon: the Asian and Oceanian dates.
