BTS Leader Asks Fans to Stop Gathering at Hotel During Peru Tour

RM, the leader of BTS, posted a direct appeal to fans on Wednesday through Weverse, the platform where the group communicates with its fanbase. The message was simple and urgent: stop gathering outside the hotel where the seven members were staying in Lima. The noise from crowds had made sleep nearly impossible, he wrote, and the group needed rest between performances.

The gatherings had begun as soon as BTS arrived in Peru for the ARIRANG world tour. Fans had congregated outside the hotel continuously, drawn by proximity to the musicians they followed. RM's appeal was not just for Peru—he addressed fans in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, countries where the tour would continue and where similar crowds might form. The message carried an implicit warning: this pattern needed to stop before it repeated elsewhere.

The BTS Perú Fanclub, established in 2013 and described as the country's first organized fan community, issued its own statement the day after RM's post. The organization distanced itself from the hotel gatherings, emphasizing that it had never encouraged fans to congregate outside the building. Instead, it had organized a ten-minute drone show along Lima's Costa Verde waterfront—a tribute that took place away from where the band was sleeping. The fanclub stressed that the behavior of individuals outside the organized community should not define months of volunteer work preparing to welcome BTS to Peru. It also called on media outlets and content creators to stop promoting livestreams from the hotel, which amplified the crowds.

The hotel gatherings were not the only friction point. During the first concert at Lima's San Marcos Stadium on Wednesday, fans reported that scalpers were charging as much as 300 soles—roughly $87—to reserve places in lines outside the venue. The practice sparked complaints and confrontations among people waiting to enter. Peru's consumer protection agency, Indecopi, launched an investigation after more than 800 fans reported irregularities in the sale of official BTS merchandise, specifically the light sticks known as ARMY Bombs.

Yet beneath these tensions lay a significant economic story. Peru's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism estimated that the three scheduled concerts would bring more than 50,000 tourists and day visitors to Lima, generating approximately $18.7 million in tourism spending. The combined audience across all three performances was projected at roughly 150,000 people. Of those, more than 36,500 were expected to spend at least one night in the capital, while another 14,000 would visit without staying overnight. The ministry broke down the spending: $8.1 million from international visitors, $9.9 million from domestic tourists, and approximately $760,000 from domestic day trips.

The international reach was substantial. Ticket data showed that 5.74 percent of buyers lived outside Peru. Ecuador accounted for 27.9 percent of international purchases, followed by Mexico at 12.2 percent, Bolivia at 10.6 percent, the United States at 9.1 percent, and Chile at 6.8 percent. The demand had been extraordinary—Peru's tourism promotion agency, Promperú, reported that more than 521,000 users had joined virtual queues to purchase tickets, a number that vastly exceeded available capacity.

Peruvian authorities had positioned the tour as a showcase for Lima's hotels, restaurants, and cultural attractions, a way to draw international travelers to the country. The concerts represented both opportunity and challenge: an influx of visitors and spending power, but also the management of fan behavior that, however well-intentioned, was interfering with the artists' basic need for rest. RM's message reflected that tension—gratitude for the support, but a clear boundary about what the group could sustain.