The world’s favorite K-Pop cult supergroup BTS has some bad news: they are cancelling the Korean leg of their world tour due to growing concerns about the recent coronavirus outbreak. The band announced on Thursday that they are cancelling four performances in South Korea in April due to health risks regarding the recent spread of the extremely transmissible COVID-19 strain of coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China. BTS’s representatives at Big Hit Entertainment released a statement explaining how the band came to this decision, stating that “the recent outbreak has made it impossible at this time to predict the scale of the outbreak during the dates of the concert in April, alongside increasing uncertainty about the cross-border movement of concert staff and equipment.”
BTS is not the only group to cancel performances in Asia, as both Green Day and British rapper Stormzy have announced that they would be postponing the Asian legs of their tours also due to concerns regarding coronavirus. Big Hit Entertainment assures fans that tickets will be refunded, but maintains that the health of both the group and the fans is the primary concern. “While we hope that the situation will improve,” Big Hit Entertainment says, “we must take into consideration the health and safety of hundreds of thousands of guests as well as our artists and the dire impact a last-minute cancellation may have on guests from overseas, production companies and staff. We have thus determined that with approximately one month left before the Seoul concert is set to begin, it is unavoidable that the concert must be cancelled without further delay.”