BTS's First Visit to Peru: Lima Designates 'BTS Avenue' for One Week
As BTS prepares for their first visit to Peru, the capital city of Lima is being transformed with purple themes and temporary street name changes to welcome the group. This event is seen as a significant cultural phenomenon where a K-pop concert expands into a major local tourism and economic driver.
Ahead of BTS's first visit to Peru, the capital Lima is being dyed in purple. Moving beyond the level of fans crowding the concert venue, the entire city has entered an atmosphere to welcome them, with street names being temporarily changed and tourist attractions decorated with BTS themes. This is another case where an overseas performance by a Hallyu star expands into a local cultural and tourism event.
BTS will hold their world tour 'ARIRANG' at Estadio San Marcos in Lima, Peru, on the 8th and the 10th–11th (Korean time). As it is the first large-scale performance where Peruvian ARMY can meet BTS in person, significant interest continues locally.
In particular, the movements in the Santiago de Surco district are drawing attention. From the 5th to the 11th, the Santiago de Surco district decided to temporarily call Calle Sacramento 'BTS Avenue' for one week. Beyond simply promoting the concert, it serves as a way to commemorate the first visit by engraving BTS's name onto the city's public spaces themselves.
Special sights for BTS are also being prepared throughout the city center. Arco Morisco, a structure within Surco Friendship Park, has been lighting up in purple since the 5th to welcome BTS. As purple, which symbolizes BTS and their fandom, appears in the city's nightscape, it provides another sight for local fans waiting for the performance.
The representative tourist attraction, Fountain Park, is also being decorated with BTS-themed events. As the Fantasy Fountain is filled with programs utilizing BTS's music and lighting, it is expanding into a cultural event where fans visiting the concert venue can experience various parts of the city before and after the show.
The perspective of the local tourism industry looking at BTS's visit to Peru is also unique. The Peruvian tourism website 'Peru Travel' also highlighted this Lima performance as an opportunity to promote the country's gastronomy, culture, and natural landscapes to the world. They are focusing on the possibility that overseas fans, who visit Peru simply to watch the concert, may extend their stay to explore local tourist attractions.
In fact, large-scale performances based on global fandoms are evolving into cultural events that affect not only the music industry but also the tourism industry and local economy. This is because fans who travel across borders to purchase concert tickets connect to a journey of experiencing the city by spending on accommodation, transportation, food and beverage, and tourism. Peru is also using this BTS performance as an opportunity to introduce its major tourist destinations, such as Paracas and Machu Picchu, to overseas fans, in addition to Lima.
Above all, this performance holds great symbolism in that BTS will meet Peruvian fans directly for the first time. As the fandom already formed through music meets in actual urban spaces and the local society welcomes them, K-pop is functioning as a medium that connects the cultural images of a nation and a city beyond simple popular music.
BTS opened their South American tour at Estadio El Campín in Bogotá, Colombia, on the 2nd and 3rd. Following the start of their full-scale South American tour schedule, where they breathed with approximately 100,000 spectators, they are moving to Peru. As the city's streets and tourist attractions have already begun to move around BTS ahead of the performance, attention is focused on what kind of scene this first visit to Peru will remain as for local fans.
Lee Chang-seok is the CEO and editor of Mediafine and writes for Mediafine Global, mainly covering K-Variety and also writing on K-pop, Celebrity and K-drama.
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