BTS fans, South Korea is getting an arena entirely dedicated to K-Pop

South Korea’s capitol Seoul will soon be home to a K-Pop dedicated arena, with plans announced today.

In a joint venture between Seoul Metropolitan Government and internet company Kakao, the new Seoul Arena will finish construction in Oct. 2025. Kakao’s agreement with Seoul will see the company in charge of the venue’s maintenance and operations for the first 30 years, while Seoul’s government will maintain ownership.

The Seoul Arena will have 18,000 seats, and room for a further 10,000 in standing capacity. Alongside the main arena will be a smaller 7,000 seats, a movie theatre, and an assortment of other facilities according to the press release. Kakao chairman Kim Seong-soo gave insight into the project, declaring it a “win-win” with the local community.

“Kakao is constantly thinking about what we can do to make a better world together with our society. We will thoroughly prepare various programs for revitalization so that we can further spur the global spread of K-contents and win-win with the local community.”

The popularity of K-Pop has seen one other rival arena proposed, with CJ ENM’s CJ LiveCity Arena announced and due for completion in 2024.

The sheer strength in numbers of fans for K-Pop groups like BTS are a large catalyst for these new arenas, with the K-Pop group boasting 37 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone. The group saw multiple nominations at this years Grammys, but were pipped to the post by Jean Baptiste several times.