Ticket sales for three BTS concerts scheduled for Mexico City in May devolved into chaos late last week, triggering government sanctions and even a presidential plea for more shows by the globally loved K-pop group.
In less than 40 minutes, tickets for the Korean pop group’s May 7, 9 and 10 dates at 65,000-seat Estadio GNP Seguros — named the top concert stadium in the world last year — were gone.
Virtual queues swelled to more than 1.1 million users from over 1,300 cities worldwide, according to data shared by Ticketmaster and promoter OCESA.
Fans reported system crashes, orders getting stuck on the payment page and various error messages during the ARMY presale, along with complaints that tickets marked as available could not be selected.
Others denounced alleged dynamic pricing and said seats jumped from about 8,500 pesos (about US $490) with fees to more than 12,000 pesos (about US $692) during purchase attempts.
ARMY, the group’s fan club, is an acronym for “Adorable Representative MC for Youth,” with MC meaning emcee.
Outrage grew as images circulated of regular people (or perhaps apparent resellers) lining up at physical box offices despite rules that sales were supposed to be restricted to registered fan club members.
A presale for ARMY members was held Thursday and Friday of last week, with the general sale on Saturday.
Mexico’s Federal Consumer Protection Agency (Profeco) said it had received roughly 5,000 emails and multiple hotline complaints about irregularities and price changes in the BTS sale.
Profeco’s head, Iván Escalante, announced proceedings against Ticketmaster “due to a lack of clarity in the information provided to consumers” and promised sanctions for resale platforms such as StubHub and Viagogo “for engaging in abusive and unfair practices.”
At her Monday morning press conference, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said around 1 million young Mexicans wanted to attend the shows, but “there are only 150,000 tickets.”
After OCESA warned that the global schedule left little room for extra dates, Sheinbaum said, “I wrote a letter to the prime minister [Kim Min-seok] of Korea, asking him to bring the group to Mexico more often. I haven’t received a reply yet, but hopefully it will be positive, or at least that he’ll allow screens,” so those who can’t attend the concerts can watch them.
BTS, a seven-member K-pop boy band formed in 2013, is the best-selling act in South Korean history and one of the few non-English-language artists to sell out London’s Wembley Stadium.
Their 79-date Arirang world tour, starting in South Korea this spring, marks their full-group return after completing their nation’s mandatory military service.
With reports from La Jornada, El País, El Financiero and Milenio
