This image of BTS during the “Love Yourself: Speak Yourself” tour finale concert at Seoul Olympic Stadium on Oct. 29, 2019, is provided by Big Hit Entertainment.
SEOUL, March 20 (Korea Bizwire) — English-speaking spectators accounted for the largest portion of overseas tickets reserved for domestic concerts over the past two years.
Interpark Corp., a leading online ticket and book seller, analyzed big data for tickets sold between Jan. 1, 2018 and Dec. 31, 2019 on its global site, which is operated in English, Chinese and Japanese.
The results, based on sale proceeds, showed that the most tickets were sold on the English website, accounting for 40.5 percent.
The English site was followed by sales on the Japanese website, accounting for 38.1 percent, and sales from the Chinese site, accounting for 21.3 percent.
In particular, sales from the entire global audience increased by 34 percent compared to 2018.
While enjoying performances in South Korea, 58.8 percent of English audience members, 20.6 percent of the Japanese and 22.2 percent of Chinese spent more than in 2018.
There was also a huge increase in demand for concert genres in all countries, with ticket sales rising 89 percent in English speaking countries and 31 percent in Chinese speaking countries.
Interpark said, “It seems that K-pop superband BTS has had a bigger impact than anything else.” In 2018 and 2019, BTS held large-scale concerts at Seoul Olympic Stadium.
The Japanese audience share was high in musical theater. They were more interested in musicals at 58.1 percent compared to 40.1 percent for concerts.
However, in 2018, Japanese accounted for 71.4 percent of musical spectators, but in 2019, the number of people who came from Japan to watch concerts doubled.
Chinese-speaking spectators also accounted for a whopping 84.3 percent of the concert sales, while 15.1 percent of the Chinese spectators accounted for musical sales.
The concert sales proceeds generated by Chinese consumers increased by 31 percent year-on-year.
For concerts, which had the highest proportion of sales by genre at 65 percent, English spectators accounted for 49 percent of the audience. Next was 27.6 percent from Chinese-speaking countries, and 23.4 percent from Japan.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
