BTS’ Online Concert ‘Bang Bang Con’ Pulls in Over 50 Million Views

South Korean group BTS saw major success and fanfare around ‘Bang Bang Con,’ their two-day long concert streaming experience held on on April 18th and 19th. Over the weekend, the band and their company Big Hit Entertainment presented a concert marathon to lift fans’ spirits through the COVID-19 lockdown, with footage from past shows and fanmeets available for viewing via a livestream on BTS’ YouTube channel BangtanTV.

‘Bang Bang Con’ became a global group activity, as fans from around the world joined in to watch and cheer together on social media, discussing their favorite moments from each show. BTS’ beloved light stick, the ARMY bomb — once connected via the label’s community app Weverse — was remotely synced with the concert onscreen, a marvel made possible thanks to the audio signal of the video being linked to the app via Bluetooth. According to a press release from Big Hit, the past two days saw over 500,000 light sticks connected across 162 regions from around the globe. ‘Bang Bang Con’, which played for approximately 24 hours (12 hours per day), amassed a total of 50.5 million views, reaching up to 2.24 million concurrent viewers.

Courtesy of Big Hit Entertainment

The livestream began with 2015’s ‘<The Most Beautiful Moment in Life>,’ followed by 2016’s ‘<The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: EPILOGUE>,’ 2014’s ‘Live Trilogy: Episode II The Red Bullet’ and BTS’ third Muster ‘[ARMY.ZIP+].’  The second day’s lineup featured 2017’s ‘Live Trilogy Episode III The WINGS Tour in Seoul’ and ‘Trilogy Episode III The WINGS Tour The Final,’ BTS’ fourth Muster ‘[HAPPY EVER AFTER]’ and 2019’s ‘LOVE YOURSELF’ in Seoul. The tracks played across the various tours included “No More Dream,” “Attack on BTS,” “House Of Cards,’ “Danger,” “Dope,” “Boy In Luv,” “Fire” and “I NEED U.”

As seen by fan reactions over social media, ‘Bang Bang Con’ has opened a new avenue for entertainment while most of the world is in lockdown during the current COVID-19 emergency. While we are seeing plenty of celebrities performing for their fans from home, livestreaming past concerts is perhaps a new way for fans and artists to stay connected and entertained as they reminisce over concert memories or experience ‘catching’ the artist live if they hadn’t during the tour. Pink Floyd and Radiohead are some of the other artists making their past shows available to view on livestreams over the next couple of weeks. With BTS teasing at the end of the livestream that they will be ‘back on ARMYs screens in June’, it can be speculated that they are expanding on innovative new ideas for at-home entertainment.