Busan: More than tour stop for BTS

Tourists and fans of K-pop boy band BTS visit the "BTS THE CITY ARIRANG Busan Welcome Center," which opened June 5 at the Busan Eurasia Platform, Tuesday. Yonhap

By Pyo Kyung-min

• Published Jun 12, 2026 12:00 PM KST
• Updated Jun 12, 2026 1:25 PM KST

Group's upcoming shows in port city mark 13th debut anniversary

BUSAN — K-pop sensation BTS is heading back to Busan. Three years and eight months have passed since the group last stood on a stage in Korea's second-largest city, and the place has not been forgotten.

On June 5, about a week before the group's concert, the city was already restless with anticipation.

The seven-piece K-pop juggernaut — composed of RM, Jin, Suga, J-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook — is set to hold the Busan leg of its ongoing "ARIRANG" world tour at Busan Asiad Main Stadium scheduled for Friday and Saturday. The shows come roughly three months after the group's comeback performance at Seoul's Gwanghwamun Square, held to mark the release of its fifth studio album, and about two months after the tour's opening run in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. Both Busan dates have long since sold out.

For BTS and its fans, Busan is not simply a tour stop. Few cities in the world carry the kind of weight for BTS that the port city does, and the group has chosen its concert dates here carefully.

The finale of the two-night Busan show will fall on Friday, the exact date BTS debuted in 2013 with the single album "2 COOL 4 SKOOL." Every year, the anniversary is commemorated through "BTS FESTA," a large fan celebration. This year, the celebration happens to take the form of a stadium concert. With all members now back from mandatory military service, the reunion feels complete in a way it has not in years.

Third time to host concert

The venue itself is part of the group's story. BTS members Jimin and Jung Kook are both from Busan, giving the city a particular significance on the group's identity. As BTS grew, so did its relationship with the city.

The first sign of that relationship becoming something bigger came in June 2019, when BTS held its fifth global fan meeting, "BTS 5th Muster: Magic Shop," at Busan Asiad Auxiliary Stadium over two nights. It marked the group's first major official event in the city since its debut, with approximately 44,000 fans having showed up across both days.

The city welcomed the fans, bathing Gwangan Bridge, Busan Port Bridge and Yongdusan Tower in purple light, the group's signature color. It was one of the earliest examples of a Korean city leaning into K-pop as a form of urban identity, which later led to other K-pop acts following similar promotion styles.

The defining moment between the group and Busan as a site to connect with fans, however, came on Oct. 15, 2022. The single-night concert held at Busan Asiad Main Stadium in support of the city's bid to host the 2030 World Expo was free, enormous and, though no one said it outright, felt like a farewell. The show marked the last time BTS performed together before members began enlisting one by one. More than 52,000 people packed the stadium, while another 100,000 watched the performance live on massive screens at Haeundae Beach and Busan North Port.

Hometown of Jimin, Jung Kook

Nearly four years later, BTS is back, and the city has transformed itself accordingly. For ARMY, BTS' official fandom, Busan during concert season is less a tour stop than a pilgrimage, and fans have been arriving for days already, working through sites that exist between travel and devotion.

The most iconic among them is Gamcheon Culture Village, a hillside neighborhood that began as a settlement for Korean War refugees before being remade through an urban renewal project into a layered, colorful maze of alleys and murals.

At its heart sits a towering mural of Jimin and Jung Kook, painted not by the city or the group's label, but by fans. Made as a permanent act of devotion on a wall, fans from across the world queue in front of it, take their photos, post them and feel part of something larger than themselves.

A short drive away in Busan's Nam District, ZM-illenial is a cafe run by Jimin's father. The space is quietly overwhelming. Cafe walls are adorned with fan art and handwritten letters penned by visitors who made the trip from the other side of the world just to sit somewhere that feels close to Jimin. Trophies and plaques mapping the arc of BTS' rise are also still on display. His father keeps all of it — the old gifts, the worn-out offerings, the BTS playlist still running in the background. The warmth of the place is not something any official merchandise store has managed to replicate.

Fans also make their way to Mandeok Lego Village, a residential neighborhood where Jung Kook — the group's youngest member — grew up, named for the colorful block-like roofs and facades of its houses. Nearby, Seokbul Temple sits tucked into the rocky face of Geumjeong Mountain.

And then, there is Ami-dong, a quiet hillside village whose name sounds identical to ARMY in Korean. No further explanation is needed for why devoted fans make the climb.

Returning to where BTS' story began

The choice to spend the debut anniversary in Busan, mid-world tour, also says something about how the K-pop boy band thinks about its relationship with Korean fans. While the Gwanghwamun comeback show earlier this year read as a declaration of reunion, the Busan concerts are about going back to their roots, where part of BTS' story began.

Busan, compared to Gwanghwamun, is more lived-in, slightly removed from the core. In choosing to mark its 13 years as a group here rather than in Seoul, BTS is doing more than filling a stadium — it's drawing its own map.

The concerts are expected to generate a significant economic ripple across Busan's tourism, hospitality, transport and local retail sectors. Fans do not simply attend a show and leave — they eat, stay, wander, spend and document.

Busan has become one of the clearest examples of a city that understand how to absorb a K-pop event and turn it into something the whole city feels.

The Busan run is not just another date on BTS' long-running tour schedule. Following Gwanghwamun, BTS is once again using a symbolically loaded Korean city to extend its own story. The K-pop map keeps getting redrawn, and right now, it points firmly south.