South Korea's BTS K-pop supergroup launched its global concert tour on Thursday with the first of three concerts at Goyang Stadium near Seoul.

The tour will take the band to 34 cities across the world, setting a new record for the most tour dates by a K-pop artist. Tickets for the concerts in South Korea, North America and Europe sold out within hours of opening for sale, according to the BTS' management agency.

Fans clad in purple, the color of the BTS fan based known as the ARMY, began arriving in the rain at Goyang Stadium hours before the show began.

BTS tour 2026 after 4 years away

Band members RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook are returning to the stage after a nearly four-year hiatus, during which they completed South Korea's mandatory military service.

They ended up reuniting in 2025 to record their fifth studio album "Arirang," which is also the name of a centuries-old folk song popular in both North and South Korea. 

The album was released in March and topped the Billboard 200 chart for two weeks, in a first for a K-pop group or artist. The lead single "Swim" made its debut at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, rankings worldwide.

The performances will draw from both BTS' catalog and the new album. Last month, BTS marked their comeback with a free concert in Seoul.

BTS is short for Bangtan Sonyeondan, or "Bulletproof Boy Scouts" in Korean. The group debuted in June 2013 with the hip-hop heavy album "2 Cool 4 Skool." The group grew in prominence with their 2016 album "Wings."

The group's first headline tour performance since the 2021–22 "Permission to Dance on Stage" tour will head to Tokyo next, before continuing to through North America, Europe, South America and Asia. The tour will lead to Australia in early 2027, with a final stop in the Philippines' Manila next March.​

Analysts say some estimates have pointed to total tour earnings of as much as $1.81 billion (€1.5 billion).

Edited by: Elizabeth Schumacher