BTS cancels Seoul leg of world tour in April over coronavirus
BTS / Yonhap
K-pop super band BTS on Friday canceled the inaugural Seoul leg of its new world tour set to kick off in April as its home country is struggling to contain mass outbreaks of the novel coronavirus.
The band's management agency broke the news through its mobile fan platform, Weverse.
"We regret to announce that the BTS 'Map of the Soul Tour - Seoul Concert,' originally scheduled to be held on April 11, 12, 18 and 19 at Olympic Stadium, has been canceled," Big Hit Entertainment announced.
"Plans for 'Map of the Soul Tour-Seoul' included the involvement of a number of global production companies and a large group of expert international crew, with over 200,000 concertgoers expected to attend," according to Big Hit.
But the current global coronavirus outbreak made it "impossible" at this time to predict the scale of the outbreak during the dates of the concert in April, the company said of its decision to call off the four days of concerts.
"While we hope that the situation will improve, we must take into consideration the health and safety of hundreds of thousands of guests as well as our artists and the dire impact as last-minute cancellations may have on guests from overseas, production companies and staff."
Tickets for the events will be fully refunded, Big Hit said, apologizing for the decision.
As of Friday morning, South Korea's coronavirus infections reached 2,022 as 505 new cases were reported on Thursday. The death toll was at 13. (Yonhap)