The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, revealed on Monday (Jan. 26) that she sent a diplomatic note to South Korea’s prime minister, Kim Min-seok, requesting his intervention for BTS to offer more concerts in the Latin American country after tickets for the three spring dates the K-pop supergroup scheduled at GNP Seguros Stadium in Mexico City sold out in less than an hour.
“BTS is very popular among Mexican youth. The concerts will be in May, and around a million youngsters want to buy tickets, but there are only 150,000 available,” Sheinbaum said during her usual morning press conference.
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Promoter OCESA reported on Saturday (Jan. 24) that BTS’ scheduled shows for May 7, 9 and 10 in Mexico City are completely gone. According to Ticketmaster Mexico, 1.1 million people queued in the virtual line for the three dates, and tickets sold out within 37 minutes. The presale for members of the ARMY (as BTS fans are known) took place on Friday (Jan. 23), while the general sale went ahead as planned on Saturday (Jan. 24).
Sheinbaum’s request to her South Korean counterpart comes amid controversy over the presale and high demand for BTS tickets, which prompted the Mexican government to demand transparency in ticket sales. Sheinbaum explained on Monday that the weekend was marked by complaints about ticket resales and the lack of clarity in the process, which led her to contact OCESA.
“I spoke with the head of OCESA, which is the organizer, with [general director] Alejandro Soberón. I asked him what the possibility was for more [BTS] concerts, because throughout the weekend, there were complaints about the alleged resale of tickets,” the Mexican president added. Soberón’s response, according to Sheinbaum, was that there were no more dates available, which led the president to take the matter through diplomatic channels and send a note to the South Korean prime minister.
The controversy over BTS tickets led Mexico’s Federal Consumer Protection Agency (Profeco) to intervene after detecting hundreds of dissatisfied customers during ticket sales through monitoring and complaints received from consumers, said Iván Escalante, head of the government agency, on Monday during the presidential conference.
Escalante reported that Profeco would initiate a “procedure for infringement of the law” against Ticketmaster Mexico due to an alleged lack of transparency in the information provided to consumers. Additionally, resale platforms like StubHub and Viagogo will be sanctioned for engaging in allegedly abusive and unfair practices.
The frenzy sparked by the announcement of BTS’ 2026 Arirang World Tour in Mexico drove resale prices in the country up to $9,000. Billboard Español sent a request for comment to Ticketmaster Mexico, which did not immediately respond.
