BTS: K-Pop Sensation Launches World Tour in London

They're the most streamed group of all time on , have had seven US number one singles, addressed the UN General Assembly on three occasions and in 2022 contributed 0.2 per cent of GDP to the South Korean economy.

But have you ever heard of RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook?

Together, the seven young men - ranging in age from 28 to 33 - make up South Korean boyband , by almost any metric the most successful K-Pop act of all time.

BTS is an initialism for 'Bangtail Sonyeondan' which translates as Bulletproof Boy Scouts. 

And indeed, when the septet emerged from one of Korea's notoriously gruelling pop-star academies back in 2013, they were just that: boys - Jung Kook, the youngest member, was only 15.

But in the 13 years since, the boys have become men, no longer pop-star wannabes but bonafide global megastars with 10 studio albums behind them and hundreds of millions of obsessive fans - known as ARMYs - scrutinising their every word, gesture and move down to the smallest sniffle.

Today, on Monday July 6, BTS return to the UK for the first time in six years to play back-to-back concerts at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in north London, the 120,000 tickets selling out within just 30 minutes. 

Their arrival has been so eagerly anticipated that the enormous Future Stores at 95 Oxford Street has been converted into a pop-up store selling BTS merchandise.

Demand was so high that punters had to wait in an online queue to prebook tickets just to gain store entry.

Since their previous UK appearance in 2019, all seven members have taken part in mandatory military service in their home country. 

Videos shared online showed super-fans crying as the band announced their hiatus in June 2022 while record label Hybe saw operating profits drop 37.5 per cent.

No surprise then that the BTS comeback gig – which took place in Seoul's Gwanghwamun Square on March 21 this year – was attended by no fewer than 100,000 fans with millions more watching across 190 countries via Netflix. 

A fortnight later and the boys set off on their 82-date world tour - promoting their latest 14-track album Arirang – and will perform at London's 60,000-strong Tottenham Hotspur stadium today.

But what is it about seven boys from Korea that took the world by storm and captured the imaginations of both screaming schoolgirls and even 30-year-old men like me?

BTS aren't just another hastily assembled potpourri of pretty boys. They're a fiercely curated product, their undeniable talents honed over years in one of Korea's notorious pop academies, their choreography painstakingly finessed and their aesthetic pored over by teams of artistic directors. 

The results are beguiling. These are the demigods of pop. Not just a bunch of lads with microphones and a record deal, but a perfectly tuned musical machine. And who needs authenticity when you can have perfection?

Watch the band's cinema-worthy music videos for recent hit single 'Hooligan' or 2021 ear-worm 'Butter' and you'll get it very quickly: hideously catchy melodies, outlandish designer outfits, flawless dancing – this is pop-music par excellence.

Perhaps the secret of their success, however, is so-called 'glocalisation' - the merging of global influences with local Korean culture. The boys sing in a hybrid of Korean and English, and while their latest album features the sound of sacred Korean bronze bells, so too it was recorded in Los Angeles with American producer Diplo.

The band was put together by record label Bit Hit Entertainment (since rebranded as Hybe Corporation) who auditioned hundreds of hopefuls before putting their seven recruits through a gruelling training programme to turn them into impeccable singers, dancers and media personalities.

The unforgiving process by which Korean labels train up their steeds is the thing of legend, with many larger organisations moving the most talented into so-called 'academies' where the 'trainees' work long hours in the studio in the hope they will one day earn a record deal. Most, of course, never do.

Quite how brutal these academies are has been laid bare elsewhere by a number of whistleblowers including former trainee 'Euodias' who told the BBC of dance classes starting at 5am for 9-year-olds, families requiring permission to visit their children and 'no such thing as weekends or holidays'.

But for those who make it, such as BTS or the similarly successful K-pop girl group Blackpink, the rewards are extraordinary. 

Each of the seven band members are thought to be worth around £23 million. In 2025, the band's label Hybe posted profits of £1.39 billion. 

Prior to their enforced hiatus in 2022, the boys were contributing more than 5.5 tn won (£3 billion) to the South Korean economy, 0.2 per cent of the country's GDP, according to the Culture and Tourism Institute.

Certainly, the band's popularity owes an awful lot to social media with singer Suga telling BBC Radio 1: 'I think we're so lucky to be born at the right time. Without social media, we wouldn't have been so successful.'

Indeed, BTS has more than 85 million YouTube subscribers with a similar number of followers on TikTok and Instagram.

When asked about their love for the band when BTS last toured the UK, young female fans expressed an obsession reminiscent of Beatlemania or the more recent frenzy surrounding One Direction.

'Their songs are so meaningful, and I love the dances, they're so energetic,' declared one fan. 'It really makes you feel included and excited.'

'They just have no flaws,' declared another girl. 'They're beautiful in every single way,' said a third.

To their fans, perhaps, the boys have no flaws. The reality of course is very different.

When band leader RM was photographed smoking – something of a taboo in South Korea – he responded on a solo track released in 2024 with the lyrics: 'Smoking kills, I know. It's my f******g business, you b*****s stop, don't talk sh*t'. 

Certainly, a world away from the squeaky-clean image the boys curated as teenagers.

Later that year Suga was arrested for driving an e-scooter while intoxicated, subsequently issuing an apology online.

Jimin and Jung Kook then faced a backlash for allegedly promoting eating disorders. Jimin revealed in 2017 that he would go days without eating as part of a diet that saw him lose 15lbs. 

He would often pass out during dance rehearsals – and yet they have declared their recent diets to have been a 'success.' When asked to elaborate, Jimin said: 'not eating'. Jung Kook added: 'Don't eat and run well.'

And yet, in spite of all this - and the fact that K-Pop album sales dropped 20 per cent in 2024 - seemingly nothing can stop the BTS juggernaut. Indeed the upcoming world tour is set to be a major global fiscal event. 

Similar to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour - which, on the 2023 US leg alone, prompted an estimated £3.75 billion in consumer spending on everything from merchandise to food, travel and accommodation - the BTS world tour is expected to generate £740 million.

Demand for tickets is simply unprecedented. So much so that the Mexican President sent a formal letter to her South Korean counterpart asking for the band to put on extra nights in the Central American country. 

'Around 1 million young people want to buy tickets, but there are only 150,000 tickets available,' she declared.

So the boys are back. Not just superstar singers, but trained killers with the South Korean military too.

For those lucky enough to catch the band live, it will not only be a spectacle but a piece of history - for this astronomic world tour cements BTS not only as the biggest group in Korea, but anywhere in the world.