Permission to dance
Today: Diana Moskovitz, investigations editor, writer, and co-owner of Defector.
Issue No. 612
Las Vegas K-Pop Adventure
Diana Moskovitz
Las Vegas K-Pop Adventure
by Diana Moskovitz
There’s a lot of hype—and for good reason—around BTS WORLD TOUR ARIRANG, which kicked off in April and will continue for 88 shows, ending in 2027. Arirang—the album name taken from a Korean folk song used in the opening track—is the K-pop group’s first original studio album since 2020; in 2022 they went on hiatus so that all seven members could perform their mandatory Korean military service. The tour is their first global tour since before the Covid pandemic. So, no surprise, tickets have been pricey.
After paying $437.92 for two concert tickets for my husband and myself to see the show at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, I wanted to navigate the rest of the trip as economically as possible. So we drove to the show from our home in Los Angeles. We stayed far from the Las Vegas Strip, which is where all the expensive hotels and casinos are. And we decided we would only do BTS events that were either free, fan-driven or, ideally, both.
That is how I found myself, shuffling in my ill-considered heels, and waiting for the Vegas monorail to take a custom-designed lipstick-red, BTS-themed train ride. Just $6 a ticket, and we would get to support public transit. It would be silly and fun, in the way touristy things are supposed to be.
A person unfamiliar with the group or its intense fandom, better known as ARMY, might ask: Why would you do all of these things? Wasn’t the concert enough?
Keep us breathing fire!
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