‘The Great BTS Ticket War of 2026’–Hundreds of thousands left in anguish

Ticketing for BTS’ new tour Arirang. Connie Cheng | Lariat

BTS has finally come back with not just a new album, but also the announcement of a world tour. After about a four year hiatus in order for the members to perform their mandatory two year military service duties, they said their goodbyes and haven’t come back to the stage as a group since October 2022.

BTS is a Korean boy group consisting of three rappers and four singers. As of today, the group has won 12 Billboard music awards, 11 American music awards, 35 melon music Awards and five Grammy nominations, to name a few. 

They also hold 25 Guinness world records, for example having the fastest accumulation of six #1 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, breaking the record the Beatles held since the 1960s, a feat made even more impressive when considering the fact that the band doesn’t perform in or speak English and many of their awards have been won in English speaking countries.

Their last tour Permission to Dance, in 2021, ran for four days at Sofi Stadium in L.A. and all four shows sold out completely in 23 minutes during presale.

This year, the L.A. shows will once again be in four shows in Sofi Stadium in September. 

Presale ticketing–ticketing that is offered exclusively to members of their annually paid fan membership–started on Jan. 22 at 3 p.m. while general sale is set to start on Jan. 24 at 3 p.m. 

One of my big BTS enthusiast friends had gotten lucky and was able to get two nosebleeds for $200 each during the first day of presale and couldn’t be happier. I asked if I could borrow her account for the next day’s presale to test a couple of the tips I’ve heard around. 

First test: Mobile device vs computer

Word is that Ticketmaster might favor mobile devices over computers to avoid scalpers and bots so I tried simultaneously with both my phone and my laptop. On my phone, I made it to “15,000+” in the queue, while on my laptop, I made it to “89,000+” in the queue. 

Second test: Reloading right when tickets drop–good or bad?

I left my phone alone even as it held me in the waiting room two minutes past the time tickets went up and immediately reloaded my laptop at 3 p.m. on the dot. My phone eventually automatically brought me into the queue a couple minutes later than my laptop, and even then I was way ahead in the queue compared to my computer. 

Third Test: Gaining cosmic energy from the boys’ faces

My friend swears that she gets tickets easier when she has the band–as in pictures and merchandise–surrounding her, giving her some sort of cosmic energy. It worked for her so I thought, why not? I borrowed just a few of her things and put them around me almost like some sort of seance. 

Well, the ticketing, now dubbed “The Great BTS Ticket War of 2026” by fans and social media, sold out within seconds during the presale while more than 150,000 fans still waited in the queue. 

With staggering times for tickets in different states to go on sale–mainly to avoid crashing the ticketing site like in the past–BTS managed to sell out 22 of the largest stadiums across the US in less than 24 hours. 

All tickets sold out during the presale and didn’t even make it to the general audience. 

The end result for me, personally, is both show dates on my phone and laptop selling out before I even got close to the front of the queue. I experienced firsthand why supporters stated there would be bloodshed for these concerts, I’m just sad the seance didn’t work for me. 

Luckily, I have a friend who bought two tickets instead of just one, allowing me the esteemed occasion of experiencing BTS perform live later this year. 

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