2016 saw a lot of BTS: the K-pop boy band broke chart records, headlined two nights of KCON USA, and won top accolades in Korea. And on Dec. 14, the septet sold out two major U.S. arenas, then promptly added two new shows to their upcoming The Wings Tour to meet the demand of K-pop fans.
Tickets for both American legs of BTS’ The Wings Tour 2017 BTS Live Trilogy Episode III went on sale at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, and within a few hours sold out entirely. Concert-goers who hoped to see BTS perform at Newark’s Prudential Center on March 24 and Anaheim’s Honda Center on April 1 quickly discovered that tickets were no longer available, as fans from around the country rapidly bought tickets to see one of K-pop’s most popular acts.
Following the lightning-fast sale, concert organizer Powerhouse wrote on Twitter that it considered “making an important announcement tomorrow.” The following day, Powerhouse revealed that BTS would add an additional show to both its east and west coast legs of The Wings Tour. The concert series will begin a day earlier, on March 23, in Newark and end on April 2 at the Honda Center.
According to a representative at BigHit Entertainment, “[The] BTS members are very excited to go on the world tour and to meet their fans worldwide. Sold out or not, the boys will prepare the best shows ever for U.S. fans, who have been very supportive and passionate since [their] debut.”
Tickets for the additional shows go on sale Dec. 17 at 11 a.m. local time for the respective venues.
The four concerts are BTS’ largest North American shows to date; it will be their first time hosting solo arena shows in the U.S. BTS previously performed at the Prudential Center during KCON USA last summer, but the solo concert raises BTS to the realm of K-pop’s elite: only six other Korean acts, including BIGBANG, g.o.d, EXO, and 2NE1, have headlined a show at the east coast arena. This will be BTS’s first solo concert in the greater New York metropolitan area since a tumultuous stop in New York City on their 2015 Red Bullet tour.
The US.. concerts are part of the multinational Wings Tour, which will kick off in South Korea in February, and also take BTS to Chile and Brazil. The concert series was announced in November through an artistic video trailer that incorporated BTS’ unique dramatic flair. The Wings Tour will be the group’s first set of solo shows since breaking K-pop’s record on the Billboard 200 in October, when BTS’ Wings album debuted at No. 26.