Here’s How Much Super Junior And NCT 127’s Beyond The Live Concerts Made According To This Journalist
SM Entertainment‘s top boy groups have recently concluded a successful round of concerts under live streaming as a collaboration with Naver‘s “Beyond Live“, a live streaming platform for concerts and shows, including AR and VR modifications. The concerts came at a time for them to seize the opportunity to deliver, given the coronavirus pandemic that has many potential concert-goers stuck at home due to self-quarantine.
As the world’s first online-only paid live concert, the collaboration started with the group SuperM, later presenting WayV, NCT Dream, NCT 127, TVXQ and Super Junior as well. At the price of ₩33,000 KRW ($27.40 USD), it was about a third of the average price for local offline concert tickets.
The shows attracted much attention globally, with the U.S’s ABC News even mentioning the “Beyond Live” series, saying “K-pop has entered a new era of live concerts provided by state-of-the-art AR technology, making real-time communication possible during the pandemic”. While SM Entertainment declined to reveal exact numbers, Gong Mina from Starnews has evaluated the sales of the concerts based on the attendance rate for the official live stream platform and ticket prices, with Super Junior’s “Beyond the Super Show” attracting the most official viewers, 123,000 people, making for a revenue of about ₩4 billion KRW ($3,370,000 USD).
NCT 127 on the other hand, performed their show, “NCT 127 : Beyond the Origin” to an official audience of 104,000 viewers, making for a total revenue of about ₩3.4 billion KRW ($2,849,600 USD) based on calculations by Gong. Their concluded “Neo City: The Origin Tour” that scaled the world, performing at 45 venues in 2019, generated sales of about $24.4 million USD, according to U.S concert tour box office aggregate company tour data. The tour attracted a total of 217,000 audience members globally.
While an online concert is unable to match fans’ expectations fully, it is a good way for idols to continue to communicate with their fans and deliver a new performance in the best way they can for now. These numbers above do not reflect those who streamed on unofficial platforms as well, making it difficult for an actual gauge of accurate turnout.
