The BTS fandom — known as the “army” — descended on the new merch pop-up on Bloor Street Friday morning, ready to snatch up an array of wares featuring their beloved K-pop band.
Outside the pop-up, a couple dozen fans — almost all women — patiently waited their turn in the hot summer sun. Photo cards of various BTS members swung from several attendees’ bags, showing off their “bias,” in the K-pop parlance, i.e. their favourite member.
Toronto marks BTS’ only Canadian stop on this tour; they are playing two sold-out shows at Rogers Stadium on Aug. 22 and 23. The pop-up was originally slated to host 850 people per day over a series of pre-booked timeslots, but intense demand inspired them to shorten the timeslots and up the capacity to 1,200 to 1,500 per day.
The pop-up runs through Sept. 13. Inside, the gleaming white space looks more like a high-end gallery than a music store, featuring behind-the-scenes imagery of the band, minimalist pale-wood shelving and elegant opaque packaging. Album liner notes perch atop plinths, while huge black-and-white portraits of the band members grace the entrance hall. One eager fan kneeled in front of the wall-sized group portrait, arms outstretched to mime hugging them all for a photo.
Pop-up manager Andrew Park says that most pop-up traffic is 70 per cent local and 30 per cent out-of-towners, but he estimates that Toronto’s pop-up turnout may be closer to a 50/50 split, thanks to BTS fans taking advantage of the last bit of summer vacation to make the pilgrimage to the band’s only Canadian stop. “Toronto is the perfect city to host,” he says. “It’s very tourist-friendly.”
One popular item was a series of T-shirts featuring each band member covering their face with their hands. Registered practical nurse Cindy Robles, 39, picked up two at $112 each. She came in from Hamilton for the day, and it’s not the farthest she’s journeyed for BTS; she’s previously attended their Las Vegas show and is going to the upcoming Los Angeles date as well. She didn’t have the cash to splash out on much merch in Vegas, but this time, she was able to splurge.
Sticker shock
The cheapest items at the pop-up included a $37 poster, a $37 coaster, a $60 mug, a $67 keychain, a $67 chopstick set and a $75 wine stopper. Cardholders, laptop pouches, candles and hairpins would set you back $82, while a black hoodie rings in at $253.
Twenty-year-old research assistant Alice Cheng is going to the Aug. 22 concert. She felt very lonely during the COVID era, but BTS’ lyrics gave her comfort. “It just made me really feel not alone in a sense,” she says. She was excited to peruse the art aspect of the merch pop-up.
Cheng picked up a black hat, a T-shirt, and a red hoodie and hand fan for her friend.
The pop-up line even featured some famous faces: actor and “The Great Canadian Baking Show” host Ann Pornel, 42, clad in her signature bright shades, was there to pick up some merch en route to her upcoming BTS shows. She saw BTS in Paris, and is not only going to both Toronto shows, but is seeing them in Chicago as well.
For Pornel, these pop-up pieces are a beacon for fellow fans. “Wearing merch or any sort of BTS-coded things is more of a signal for other army and other people who are aware of BTS…so when I wear my merch and someone’s like (points at each other) ‘army?,’ we have that moment of ‘army!’ and it’s a nice moment of connection,” she says.
Overhearing this exchange, another pop-up line member started nodding in agreement, giving a thumbs-up to the sentiment.
“I think, ultimately,” she adds, “that’s one of the things I love about this fandom is, at the very least, in a world that’s full of disconnect, those are the things that we can connect on and we have a shared understanding of values that BTS holds that we also probably hold ourselves.”
Child-care worker Alex Melillo, 27, credits BTS with motivating her community work. She is holding a garbage clean-up in the fall for one of the BTS members’ birthdays, and she’s heard of other army members doing blood and food drives in honour of the band as well. (She also has seen BTS twice in New Jersey and even went to Korea for some of the members’ solo shows.) She’s keen to snag the photo cards that come with the albums here; one hangs from her purse.
“If you have a photo card on your bag, I know I have an in to go up to and talk to you, right? It gives you an outlet for connection,” she says.
“The community that we’ve created around each other, the way that we support each other, the way that we connect so instantly: it’s hard to find third spaces to connect with people, especially as an adult. It makes it so easy.”
