K-pop flexes its ticket-selling muscle at FirstOntario Centre
K-POP
BOY BAND BTS sold out three concerts — a total of about 30,000 tickets — planned for Hamilton’s FirstOntario Centre in just over an hour.
Jill Kurtz, Core Entertainment assistant director of marketing, indicated that the shows — scheduled for Sept. 20, 22 and 23 — could have sold even faster if the demand had not put so much stress on Ticketmaster’s online system.
“We’ve never seen traffic on Ticketmaster like that before but everything went very smooth,” Kurtz said Tuesday.
The BTS concerts represent the biggest series of shows put on at FirstOntario Centre since Garth Brooks performed five there in March 2016, selling more than 54,000 tickets in one day.
The tickets went on sale at 4 p.m. on Monday and were gone shortly after 5. Official prices ranged from $80 to $325. On Tuesday, tickets on the StubHub resale site were going for between $150 and more than $1,000 for second-tier seats, and from $250 to more than $2,500 for lower-tier and floor tickets.
Concert promoters Powerhouse Live and AEG issued a statement warning that ticket delivery would be delayed in an effort to prevent scalping and warned that
any tickets sold by resellers are subject to cancellations.
“Tickets purchased through the authorized ticket outlets will be checked for potential scalping activity before tickets are delivered,” the statement said.
“Once our system determines that tickets were purchased by scalpers or bots, those tickets will be cancelled and returned to the ticketing system for the general public.”
Kurtz said more tickets could also be released to the public after the venue receives specifications regarding the stage setup.
The Hamilton shows, announced in Korea less than two weeks ago, are the only Canadian dates on BTS’s upcoming world tour.
In North America, the only other venue to host three shows is the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, are a seven-member band formed in 2013.
They broke into the American charts in 2017 with “Love Yourself: Her.” Since then, videos like “DNA” and “Mic Drop” have scored hundreds of millions of hits on YouTube.
The group’s fans are known as the “BTS Army” and Kurtz said Core Entertainment staff have been receiving queries via social media from fans all over the world.
Tourism Hamilton has posted a “BTS Army Guide to Hamilton” to social media advising fans on where to stay and eat, as well as how to get around the city.