BTS Fans Line Up Days Ahead Of Singapore Onsale

Photo courtesy of PMKBNC Press – BTS
BTS performs for a packed house at Jamsil Olympic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 25-26.

Five days before tickets went on sale for a Jan. 19 concert by K-pop boy band BTS at the National Stadium in Singapore, fans had already started lining up at ticket booths in the city’s Kallang Wave Mall, according to a report by Asiaone.com.

Though at the time there were only 10 people waiting, the timing was considered critical given that tickets would go on sale Oct. 27 at 10 a.m. simultaneously at various ticket outlets and online.

BTS is probably the biggest K-pop act in the world at the moment and will be making its second appearance in Singapore. In addition, they will be the first K-pop act to play the National Stadium, which has a seating capacity of 55,000. The last time they performed in Singapore it was at a theater in 2014.

Ticket sales were announced Oct. 21, and one person waiting on line said she decided to arrive extra early because she feared that scalpers would corner the market and then charge very high prices for their tickets. The woman said she had tried to secure seats for a major K-pop concert in 2017 and couldn’t, and then saw tickets for the show selling for more than S$1,000 ($724) on secondary sites and bulletin boards. And they just kept going up. 

Nevertheless, some ticketing agencies said they would not allow lines to form at their booths. Sports Hub, a major ticketing outlet, said fans would not be able to start waiting until 4 p.m. on Oct. 26. The same ticketing system is being used for both online and physical sales, and according to the concert organizer, waiting on line “at the box office or outlets does not guarantee you will secure a ticket.”

Fans who planned to buy online were forming groups with friends and family to work on “standby” the morning tickets went on sale. Most told Asiaone that they expected tickets to be gone “in minutes.”