BTS To Be Featured In YouTube's New Year-End Event "ESCAPE2021"

BTS recently announced that they would be participating in ESCAPE2021…

#BTS is ready for #ESCAPE2021, an interactive experience live streaming on @YouTube. Join us & celebrate the year, with a few surprises along the way.

🗓 December 16-17, 2021

👀Set your reminder:
ENG: https://t.co/dMagxlBSvU
KOR: https://t.co/Jg3zj27Vd9

— BTS_official (@bts_bighit) December 15, 2021

But what even is that? Many ARMYs scratched their hands, wondering if BTS was about to live stream an escape room. Is this an episode of Run BTS!?

This is actually YouTube‘s first-ever ESCAPE event. It’s essentially replacing YouTube Rewind, the annual high-production year-end video that would feature viral trends and popular content creators. Although YouTube spokesperson Lauren Verrusio says otherwise, rather YouTube claims they’re simply attempting to “refocus our energies.”

Now, YouTube’s new year-end event is just as interesting. It’s a 24-hour interactive live event. Like YouTube Rewind, ESCAPE2021 is about recapping all of the biggest videos and trending content from throughout the year.

While YouTube Rewind was just a few-minute video that struggled to include everyone’s favorite content from the year, ESCAPE2021 is literally an entire day. If that sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. It’s technically divided into three chapters, beginning the first on December 16 at midnight EST.

On December 16, join LIVE for ESCAPE2021—a special live stream featuring challenges and interactive experiences from the year—with a final, live surprise you won’t want to miss.

How it’ll work: There will be three opportunities to stream and play. Each ‘chapter’ of the live stream will be completely unique, so you can play one or journey through all three—just be sure to catch the last chapter for our final live surprise.

— YouTube

It’s sure to be an exciting event as it will offer viewers an immersive experience with activities ahead of performances from some of our favorite music artists. It’s guaranteed to keep you entertained throughout the many hours.

The event seems to be an attempt by YouTube to offer more immersive online experiences, like when fans watched butter melt ahead of a new BTS song. YouTube says there will be trivia questions, trend-based challenges, and ‘real-time live experiences,’ all leading up to musical performances. One example of a challenge, echoing the BTS livestream, will require viewers to identify what butter sculptures the band has melted.

— The Verge