K-pop suggests concept of 'future concert'

BTS online concert records 22 bil. won ticket sales

By Kim Jae-heun

The new coronavirus pandemic could have become a disaster for entertainment companies here until they took it as a chance to go online and start holding concerts on virtual platforms.

For talent agencies like Big Hit Entertainment, SM Entertainment and YG Entertainment, sales coming from concerts count a lot. When COVID-19 started to spread around the world, all three foresaw problems as they had to cancel all their K-pop groups' concerts abroad.

BTS held 62 small and large concerts in and outside Korea last year that earned 198.6 billion won ($164.18 million) for Big Hit Entertainment, or one third of the company's annual sales of 587.9 billion won in 2019.

This year, Big Hit Entertainment had planned to hold 39 concerts as part of BTS's world tour covering South Korea, the United States, Canada, England, Germany, Spain and Japan. However, most of them were either canceled or postponed indefinitely.

To quickly make up for what could possibly be a huge economic loss, domestic entertainment companies found the alternative of holding concerts online. They figured there was no better option when the world was practicing social distancing with strong recommendations for people to stay home and avoid group gatherings.

BTS held its very first online concerts on April 18 and 19 on YouTube under the title of "BTS ONLINE CONCERT WEEKEND, which ran for a combined 23 hours and 13 minutes and recorded 50.59 billion views in total.

Such a success was possible as Big Hit Entertainment has been utilizing online platforms since August 2018. For a year, it aired BTS concerts at movie theaters live and streamed the shows online garnering 410,000 and 230,000 views respectively.

The entertainment company also produced a documentary featuring the behind the scenes story of BTS concerts that was watched by 4.6 million fans, more than double the 2.06 million that actually went to the boy band's live shows.

Following the success of free concerts in April, Big Hit Entertainment held the biggest paid online show, June 14, allowing 756,600 viewers from 107 countries to log in at the same ― 15 times more than the 50,000 spectators that an average large-scale concert venue accommodates.

"Is this the future of concerts? It is little frightening," said BTS member RM during the concert. "But we are able to do this because of our fans from all over the world. We hope the time comes quickly when we can gather in reality for our shows. Until then, we will do our best to do whatever else we can offer."

Big Hit Entertainment used its affiliate "beNX's" online e-commerce platform "Weverse Shop" to air the BTS concert in South Korea and Kiswe Mobile to stream the show in the United States.

The tickets cost 29,000 won for members of the BTS fan club and 39,000 won for non-members. Big Hit Entertainment earned 22 billion won from selling tickets and also generated profit from two 100-minute commercial periods played in between concert streams.

This was a huge improvement considering that BTS's agency earned 4.6 billion won from streaming the boy band's concert at Wembley Stadium in London on Naver last June attracting 140,000 people.

When Big Hit Entertainment exclusively streamed BTS's live show, S.M. Entertainment demanded use of augment reality technology to give a unique experience to the audience.

In collaboration with Naver, the country's largest portal site, S.M. Entertainment launched the first paid online concert called "Beyond LIVE" with its boy band SuperM.

When SuperM revealed its new song "Tiger Inside" during the online concert, a 3-D graphics-generated big cat ran around the stage.

The seven-member group's performance was aired live for 120 minutes and over 75,000 viewers from 109 countries logged in to watch the show.

A single tickets cost 33,000 won ($27.28) and via calculations based on audience numbers the entertainment company is estimated to have earned over 2.4 billion won in ticket sales.

Following SuperM's concert online, six more bands held concerts on virtual platforms successfully and the number of viewers increased with each new event.

S.M. Entertainment's very first online concert with SuperM attracted 75,000 fans. By the time it held its sixth show on the internet with Super Junior, a total of 123,000 fans viewed online.

"Online performances cannot completely replace live performances, said Lee Dong-yeon, a professor at the Korea National University of Arts. "However, it showed the potential for contactless concerts. We need to think about how we can both develop both online and live concerts."

Lee Hwa-jung, a researcher at NH Investment & Securities agreed that online concerts cannot substitute for the traditional concert experience but they can promote album sales.

"Considering that fan meeting events function more as marketing events than generating profits in the first place, we expect cost savings through online events," said Lee.