Overview
- The free concert at Gwanghwamun Square, livestreamed on Netflix on Saturday, ended safely and marked BTS’s first full-group performance in more than three years.
- How many people attended remains contested, with HYBE citing about 104,000 and city, police, and ministry figures ranging from roughly 48,000 to 80,000 based on differing methods and areas counted.
- Authorities planned for as many as 260,000 people and deployed thousands of police, city workers, and firefighters, treating the area as a “virtual stadium” in a caution shaped by the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush.
- The security build-out disrupted daily life in central Seoul with universal bag checks, subway bypasses and closures, a temporary ban on rallies, and wedding schedules moved earlier to avoid roadblocks.
- AFP debunked viral crowd photos by tracing one image to a 2016 protest and flagging another as AI-generated, noting a Veo watermark and detection tests that showed it was not from the concert.