Beyond Live: K-pop band SuperM sell 75,000 virtual tickets

More than 75,000 paid viewers tuned into a two-hour live stream by South Korean boy band SuperM yesterday (Sunday 26 April), for the first show in a new online-only concert series, Beyond Live.

The seven-piece, assembled last summer by management company SM Entertainment, performed to fans in 109 countries, including South Korea, the US, the UK, Japan, China, France, Germany and Australia, via video streaming service VLive (the same platform used by BTS for their Wembley Stadium broadcasts last summer) 3–5pm local time. Further Beyond Live shows include Chinese group WayV (on 3 May), NCT Dream (10 May) and Seoul-based NCT 127 (17 May).

“Compared to [physical] shows by popular [K-pop] idol groups, which are usually held with an average of 10,000 people per show, the world’s first online dedicated paid concert, Beyond Live, attracted 75,000 people around the world at once,” says SM in a statement.

“By mobilising an audience 7.5 times bigger than ‘offline’ concerts, we expect to develop a new concert business”

“By mobilising an audience 7.5 times bigger than ‘offline’ concerts, we expect to develop a new concert business.”

Fans who tuned into the first Beyond Live show paid an average of US$30 to be there, according to Forbes, earning SM some $2 million from virtual ticket sales.

In comparison, SuperM’s February date at the Forum in Los Angeles saw gross sales of just over $1m, per Billboard’s Boxscore. SuperM are represented by CAA in all areas.

Prior to the current livestreaming boom, K-pop superstars BTS earnt an estimated €3.5m ($3.8m), or just shy of $1.9m per show, from livestreaming their two performances at Wembley Stadium in London in June 2019.

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