*Please note, this information is all relevant to the previous Love Yourself Speak Yourself Tour, and all information could change for upcoming live events*
If you are here to read this blog post, that means that the time has probably come again, and BTS is finally coming again for concerts!
When trying to plan out how to have the best weekend at one of their shows there are always questions everyone has on what to do and when to do things.
So I have taken some of the biggest things people ask about and compiled all of the information into this one post.
About Me
Before beginning, here is a little bit of back story about me and my friends, as well as how we came to learn this information.
Our first time seeing BTS live was 2018 in Fort Worth, we went to both the Saturday and Sunday shows, and it was one of the best experiences and the three of us managed to make many friends that I still talk to daily ever since.
Our second time was in 2019 when we went to both of the Chicago Speak Yourself dates. We ironically ran into many of the people we had met the year previously without planning to. Making that weekend even more special.
In November of 2019 we attempted to go to Jingle Ball in LA, but since the tickets we wanted were $750 we very quickly decided against it.
In February of 2020, we successfully got tickets to both Dallas, Orlando, and Atlanta shows for the Map Of The Soul Tour before it was canceled.
And now we will try to go to one or two of their Permission To Dance Live On Stage shows in LA.
(Update as of ticket sales, we are going on the 27&28th!)
For the shows we went to, we experienced several different things, such as camping for merch and photobooth, and while things could be different nowadays, there are chances things will stay the same.
*All of these things are current as of the Love Yourself Speak Yourself Tour*
When To Get To The Stadium
The time you should get to the venue really depends on each person, if you are coming JUST to set up your army bomb I would say to get there about an hour to an hour and a half before the show starts at the latest.
If you are coming for a soundcheck, photo booth, or merch those answers DRASTICALLY change.
Sound Check
This is one of the things that there are always lots of questions and miscommunications about with these concerts.
As of the Speak Yourself Tour, soundcheck was done like this.
The soundcheck tickets, were attached to specific tickets for the show (normally the ones on the floor around the stage) and there were a few dotted around on the sides, they are also called VIP.
When you go into Ticketmaster to buy tickets, there are different markings for the ones that are VIP. Regular seats are blue dots, VIPs are normally orange dots with stars in them.
If you do not buy a dot with a star, you do not have a soundcheck ticket.
They have in the past raffled off extra soundcheck tickets on Weverse, but they are in VERY small amounts (like 250 per show). I believe it is free to enter if they decide to do that again for these upcoming shows.
Soundcheck is basically an extra amount of time inside the stadium to watch them rehearse. This part of the show is first come first served. So during the concert its self, you have the specific seats you purchased, during soundcheck you are at the seat you are in according to your position in line.
People often camp out overnight and very early in the morning for soundcheck.
After soundcheck is done you are ushered out of the stadium and have to re-enter later on where you can go to the specific seat you purchased.
Some people love the way they do it, some people hate it.
I personally think it is nice because then people who may have seats farther away have a chance to still see the boys up close, even if it is only for an hour or so.
(note: I have seen for this tour that soundcheck is non-transferable, so you are not able to buy soundcheck tickets through resale)
Merch
Merch at BTS concerts has become a lot easier since they moved to bigger venues.
Normally the merch tents are open outside of the venue and inside, and the outside tents open up the day before and are open all day for the show as well.
In previous tours when they were in smaller venues (ex. Fort Worth 2018) they would sell out of things extremely fast, resulting in things being sold online for three to four times the price.
But nowadays they have a greater quantity of items so things rarely sell out. Unless it is city-specific merch (t-shirts, posters that say the specific show date on it)
Army Bombs NEVER sell out,at least at any of the shows I have gone to, so you will always be able to purchase one there, they are normally sold for $50 and they also sell batteries for $2
When in line, you will receive a piece of paper and a pencil. The paper will be front and back and will have photos of all of the merch being offered, along with the prices of each thing.
You will mark the box next to what you want (and the size you want for clothing or member of your choice for member-specific things)
I always bring my own pen from home to use on my form, they do have pencils there for you to use but I just find it easier to have my own.
At the front of the line you hand the paper to the person behind the table helping you, and they look at the things you marked and get the merch accordingly.
Army Bombs
If and when you have an Army Bomb, make sure you bring it with a fresh set of batteries or buy some there, and don't let it run until right before the show when you have it registered.
They will have booths there at the venue with people who look at your ticket and seat numbers, and once you show them they will take your army bomb and register your light stick to the seat you are in so that it can blink coherently with the rest of the light sticks in the stadium.
There is also an app you can use to set yours up, but I personally always find it difficult to use so I just go to the booth and have them set it up for me!
With army bombs, you can also decorate them if you'd like!
It was a big trend a while back to coat them in a layer of rhinestones, and sometimes people will also have little covers for them to make them look like bt21 characters!
Photo Booth
This is where it gets interesting.
For those who don't know, a photo booth is where you go into a curtained room and go up to a screen where you pick a member.
Then you sit down on this little bench and they do a VR video on the screen where they put the member into the room, and then you take a photo with them and it prints out on the end.
This is a totally free experience and all you have to do is enter the raffle, you will have to choose which day you want it on, and once they raffle out time spots you will go the day of with your printed ticket and they scan it and check you in, and once it is your turn you go in and take your photo.
(here are my photos from SYS Chicago!)
Now there is a way to participate in the photo booth without a ticket.
It is called the standby line.
And kinda it sucks.
But if you have friends to wait with or are very outgoing and willing to talk to the people around you it makes the experience much more fun.
But it will get you your photo.
So the stand-by line is basically where you line up and when there is no one left in the ticketed line, they will allow people from the standby line to take a photo.
To give an example of how long this takes, we did this in Chicago, we got in line around 6 am and were probably in the 100’s in our line placement.
They cut the line off around 200 and started turning people away and we were about 50 people away from not making the cut.
We did not get our photos until about 1 PM.
And we had to wait in line the whole time on standby because if we left our spot would be given away to someone else.
Freebies
There are always many nice fans at every show that will bring freebies.
Normally it is little pictures of the members or bt21 characters, sometimes they include stickers or candy as well.
To find people passing them out I typically look on Twitter by typing in (BTS *show name and date* freebies) and then a bunch of accounts will come up!
Sometimes they ask you to reserve one just to know how many they should bring, but if you don't want to do all that there are always people who bring them just to give out!
One thing to keep in mind, is sometimes venues have different rules on freebies, Soldier Field in Chicago didn't mind them because we were passing them out at the park across the street. But Rosebowl in LA did not allow them at all from what I saw online.
So if you are planning to bring some to pass out, be wary of the people around you, because they could make you throw them away depending on stadium policy.
Have more questions? Send it through the link below and I will answer to the best of my ability and have it updated onto this post!
Pins!