'Welcome to ma city': BTS puts Busan on K-pop's tour map 'Welcome to ma city' K-pop tours, not really K anymore Busan turns into BTS's city

With two sold-out stadium concerts in Busan, BTS is raising a question that extends beyond its own tour: Can a Korean city outside the capital region become a regular destination for large-scale K-pop concerts? For most K-pop artists, touring Korea still largely means performing in Seoul and its surrounding areas. The logic is hard to ignore. The capital region, including Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi, is home to more than half of the country's population, as well as the industry's biggest venues, agencies, media outlets and production networks. Outside that sprawling metropolitan area, the equation becomes far more complicated. But BTS is taking its world tour to Busan. And Korea's largest port city is pulsing with anticipation — not only for the two concerts themselves, but for what may come after them. With two sold-out stadium concerts in Busan, the septet is raising a question that extends beyond its own tour: Can a Korean city outside the capital region become a regular destination for large-scale K-pop concerts? "I've been so excited to invite you all to my hometown," Jimin said on Oct. 15, 2022, when BTS held its free "Yet To Come in Busan" concert at Busan Asiad Main Stadium as part of the city's bid to host the World Expo. "We couldn't possibly leave this song out when we are performing in Busan, right?" he added. "Welcome to ma city!" The group then launched into "Ma City," a 2015 track in which the seven members pay tribute to their hometowns — from Suga and V's Daegu and J-Hope's Gwangju to RM and Jin's Gyeonggi, and Jimin and Jungkook's Busan. Some of the members slipped into their regional dialects, a homecoming written into the group's own music. A little less than four years later, BTS is returning to the southeastern port city for another concert, this time as part of its ongoing "Arirang" world tour. BTS opened its "2.0" era after a nearly four-year pause in full-group activities with its fifth full-length album, "Arirang," released on March 20. The group kicked off its world tour with three shows at Goyang Main Stadium in Goyang, Gyeonggi, just west of Seoul, before heading to the United States, where the tour drew 840,000 fans. Now, BTS is coming home again — and doing so at a particularly symbolic moment. The Busan concerts coincide with the group's 13th anniversary of its debut on June 13, which BTS will mark with the 2026 BTS Festa, its annual celebration with fans. The "Arirang" world tour is scheduled to take place in Busan on June 12 and 13 at Asiad Main Stadium. The timing explains why the group had to return to Korea at this point in the tour, while Busan in particular carries sentimental weight as the hometown of Jimin and Jungkook. BigHit Music, BTS's agency, has billed the concerts as "a special homecoming." "BTS will return to Busan for the first time in about four years for a special 'homecoming,'" the agency said in a release in May. "The project is especially meaningful as it takes place around June 13, the anniversary of BTS's debut." The Busan stop, however, is unusual enough to draw attention. Major K-pop concerts in Korea remain heavily concentrated in Seoul and the wider capital region, while full-scale domestic tours across multiple Korean cities have become relatively uncommon for idol acts, especially established ones. As K-pop has grown into a global touring industry, many major groups now begin their live tours with Seoul-area shows followed by overseas legs, rather than multiple stops within Korea. "Artists do sometimes hold nationwide tours, but the facilities are not always ideal, and there are not many large-scale venues," said a source from a K-pop agency, who requested anonymity. "Busan Asiad Main Stadium is a good venue, but not every artist can fill a venue of that size. Smaller than that, the facilities there are unlikely to be ideal." Even when venue capacity is not the problem, infrastructure can be. "For us, domestic concerts are important, but because man...