BTS had never played Peru before this month. The group’s first three Lima shows drew roughly 151,500 fans to Estadio San Marcos on Oct. 7, 9 and 10, and Peru’s tourism ministry projects the visit will generate about 25.1 billion won, or $19 million, in tourism-related economic benefit for the country.
The confirmation came from BigHit Music on Sunday, and it lands as the ARIRANG world tour keeps rolling through South America. What makes the story travel beyond fandom, though, is the money: a K-pop stadium run now gets measured in hotel nights, taxi rides and small-business revenue, and Lima offered the clearest recent case study.
Three Sold-Out Nights at Estadio San Marcos
BigHit Music said about 151,500 fans attended the three concerts at Estadio San Marcos in Lima. The run was originally booked as two shows, and local demand pushed it to three. The added date sold out as well.
The Lima dates were part of the BTS WORLD TOUR ‘ARIRANG’ and marked the group’s first performances in Peru since their 2013 debut. The setlist mixed global hits with material from Arirang, BTS’ fifth studio album, which gives the tour its name.
“I Wonder Why We Came to Peru Only Now”
The members addressed the 13-year wait directly from the stage. After greeting the crowd in Spanish with “Los amo,” they told the stadium, “Your passion is incredible. I wonder why we came to Peru only now.”
Jimin, whose birthday falls on Oct. 13, added his own message: “I will never forget that you always love us from the other side of the globe.” Fans answered with chants and full-crowd singalongs.
V turned the middle night into a cultural moment. Oct. 9 was Hangeul Day, the Korean holiday marking the creation of the Korean alphabet, and he wore a custom T-shirt for it. The front showed the host city’s name and his real name, Kim Tae-hyung, in Korean. The back read: “Today, Oct. 9, 2026, marks the 100th anniversary of Hangeul Day.”
The gesture fit a pattern for V on this leg of the tour. In Spanish-speaking countries, he learned local expressions and used them onstage, drawing loud responses from crowds.
The Economic Impact, Explained Number by Number
Start with the headline figure and one important caveat: it is a projection, not a final tally. Peru’s tourism ministry forecast roughly $18.7 million, about 25.1 billion won, in tourism-sector spending tied to the concerts. The ministry also projected that more than 50,000 people would travel to Lima for the shows.
That visitor estimate measures something different from the 151,500 tickets scanned at the stadium, and no post-event tourism data has been published yet. The attention started before the first show, with institutions releasing forecasts ahead of the concerts and treating the Lima run as a major tourism event. The ministry’s forecast covered the sectors most tied to a concert crowd: accommodation, food and beverages, transportation, tourism and merchandise.
A second and much larger estimate came from the Lima Chamber of Commerce, whose small business guild projected between 150 million and 200 million soles, or up to about 78 billion won, in broader economic activity. Ticket sales alone accounted for roughly 100 million soles of that, based on an average ticket price near 844 soles. Merchandise from local vendors, including shirts, jackets, caps, bags, accessories and souvenirs, ran from 20 to 200 soles per item.
Ride Requests, Merch Lines and the Fandom Economy
The clearest proof of fan spending showed up in transportation data. According to Lima newspaper El Comercio, citing ride-hailing service Cabify, requests to Estadio San Marcos on the first night, Oct. 7, ran up to 15 times higher than usual. After the concert ended, they spiked to as much as 48 times normal levels.
Ticketmaster data reported by the chamber showed that 94.37 percent of presale buyers were Peruvian, which makes this as much a domestic travel story as an international one. Fans came from Arequipa, Cusco, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura, Ica and Huancayo, along with visitors from Ecuador, Chile and Mexico. PromPerú, the country’s tourism promotion board, notes that six in 10 fans travel each year to attend live music events.
Small businesses moved to meet that demand, from Korean restaurants, cafés, fast food spots and delivery services to beauty vendors, photographers, videographers, designers, digital marketers, content creators, bakers, decorators, custom gift makers and photobooth operators. Rodolfo Ojeda, president of the chamber’s small business guild, described the shift toward fandom-specific products. “A coffee shop can develop a themed experience; a clothing store can design garments for a specific fandom,” he said.
Santiago Is Next, With Buenos Aires and São Paulo Behind It
The South American leg continues quickly. BTS performs in Santiago, Chile, on Oct. 14, 16 and 17, then Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Oct. 24, and São Paulo, Brazil, on Oct. 30.
For scale, the 2017 Wings Tour took BTS to four countries and five cities across seven shows, including stops in Santiago and São Paulo. Nine years later, the ARIRANG run is playing three stadium nights in Lima alone and three in Santiago, which helps explain why tourism authorities now publish economic forecasts before the first soundcheck.
What remains open is whether Chile, Argentina and Brazil release comparable projections, and whether Peru publishes realized visitor and spending data once the run is fully counted. Lima earned its third show only after demand pushed the original two-date run to three, which makes additional dates in the remaining cities a question worth tracking. The one confirmed hard number from Peru is the crowd itself: 151,500 people, three nights, one stadium that had never hosted BTS before.