Foreigners account for 25% of BTS comeback concert crowd

Foreigners accounted for a quarter of attendees of K-pop group BTS' comeback concert in downtown Seoul last weekend, city data showed Friday. A total of 19,170 foreigners attended the event at Gwanghwamun Square on Saturday evening, accounting for about 25 percent of 75,927 people in the area at the time, according to the data from the Seoul city government. Among the foreigners, 13,898 were long-term visitors, indicating that most of them were residents in the country, such as students, not tourists, the latest data showed. The city earlier gave real-time estimates of up to 48,000 people in the area, but a city official said the latest figures are more accurate as they are based on base station data. By nationality, 1,740 Thais are presumed to have attended the event, followed by 1,184 Vietnamese, 1,126 Indians and 1,098 Japanese, according to the data, which also analyzes foreigner entry statistics. Police had initially expected the concert to draw up to 260,000 people, prompting strict crowd control and safety measures.

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