What to know
- Twenty temporary “BTS Boulevard” signs will be installed along Yonge Street in Koreatown North as BTS arrives in Toronto for its only Canadian tour stop.Coun.
- Lily Cheng says her office needed HYBE’s approval and was racing against a fabrication deadline before getting the final sign design approved in August.
- Local BTS ARMY members helped build support for the city motion and launched a social campaign tagging BTS management, which Cheng says contributed to the effort.
- The signs will be black and red rather than BTS’s signature purple at the request of the group’s management, reflecting the branding of Arirang.
- Unlike Toronto’s Taylor Swift Way signs, the BTS Boulevard signs won’t be auctioned for charity after they’re removed.
BTS ARMY, the global superfans of K-pop megagroup BTS, which has two sold-out 50,000-capacity shows this weekend at Toronto’s Rogers Stadium, Aug. 21-22 — its only Canadian stop — helped Toronto City Councillor Lily Cheng get approval from BTS management for 20 street signs to go up on Koreatown North’s stretch of Yonge Street tomorrow (Aug. 21), where they’ll remain until Sept. 23.
Cheng, who represents Ward 18, Willowdale, introduced the motion in late July with Coun. James Pasternak, titled “Toronto Goes Dynamite! Welcoming BTS to BTS Boulevard.”
Even the motion got the ARMY treatment, weaving BTS titles including “Life Goes On,” “Stay Gold,” “You Never Walk Alone” and “Yet to Come” into its preamble.
“Usually, a motion has a preamble about why this is important,” Cheng told Now Toronto during an exclusive interview.
“We tried to make our preamble a little fun by adding some of the titles of the songs.”
BTS is a 7-member group comprising Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook, which have sold a reported 50 million physical albums worldwide.
Their latest album, Arirang, came out in March, marking their first studio album since 2020’s Be, after the members completed South Korea’s mandatory military service.
In this exclusive interview, music journalist Karen Bliss spoke with Cheng about the steps it took to make BTS Boulevard happen, if it’s modelled on Taylor Swift Way, why they won’t be auctioned for charity, why they are difficult to steal and why they aren’t purple.
Toronto had 22 Taylor Swift Way signs. How many BTS Boulevard signs will there be?
There will be 20 from North York Boulevard, which is just south of Mel Lastman Square, extending north to Finch, which is where a predominant number of our Korean restaurants are.
So, there was never any talk that the signs would line the walk from one of the subway stations to Rogers Stadium?
No, because it goes through a very long stretch on Sheppard [Avenue] where there really isn’t anything. So, no one would get excited about that. We thought we would focus the love on the Korean Festival happening at Mel Last man Square and Koreatown North [Aug. 21-23].
How many people had to vote yes to your motion?
Twenty-five councillors, plus the mayor. That’s everybody who’s eligible for a vote.
Did it help that Toronto was successful with Taylor Swift Way in 2024 for The Eras Tour?
100%. We modeled it after the Taylor Swift. Knowing that we did it successfully for Taylor Swift, we thought this would be a great opportunity to support the community here in Koreatown North.
Out of 25 councillors, how many had to vote yes?
More than half. We didn’t do a recorded vote, but no one voted against it.
Before Taylor Swift, I don’t recall a temporary street-naming in Toronto and I’ve been going to concerts for decades. Never a Rolling Stones Street when they set up rehearsals here. Not even a Rush Road. Bruno Mars did five nights at Rogers Stadium in May. Why not any of those artists?
Well, my impetus was to support my local economic development. I’ll be honest, “Dynamite,” that’s the BTS song that I know, but it would be the impetus of any city councillor that had a reason to highlight an artist. I think we’ve created a pathway that’s possible. I don’t know the different levels of fame that you’d have to have, but somebody has to be famous enough that they’re willing to put their sponsorship dollars to that name.
Is it that expensive to create and instal temporary street signs?
The total would be somewhere around $10,000.
Is the key to passing the motion that there’s a charity component? The auctioning of Taylor’s signs raised over $100,000 for the Daily Bread Food bank, matched by Rogers.
The City does have a responsibility for local economic development so the big impetus here was that we have a few overlapping factors. One is that we are Koreatown North and after COVID, some of the businesses have really struggled. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, we lost two businesses that were well-loved. And so, just seizing the opportunity to highlight a neighborhood that many people know has delicious Korean food.
Then, the second thing is we are the only Canadian show. The BTS ARMY from across North America are going to come to Toronto, for sure. And last time [K-pop girl group] Blackpink was in town, they ate at one of our local Korean restaurants [Huh Ga Ne] because this is where people come for authentic Korean food, and that restaurant like emblazoned it on their front for the longest time. People wanted to eat in that booth where Blackpink ate. So, fingers crossed that BTS will come to Koreatown North to eat. But, obviously they would never tell us because then there’d be safety implications.
And then, the third factor is that we have the Korean Festival overlapping BTS Weekend. So at the time that BTS is in town and all of these K-pop fans are coming for that concert, we will also be showcasing four other K-pop groups [NouerA, ASC2NT, Catch The Young, GranadA] that are flying in to perform at Korean Festival. So, it’s like the universe has aligned to celebrate K-pop in Willowdale and, obviously, with a big highlight on BTS.
The motion passed in late July, but I understand you then had to get permission from BTS’s management, HYBE.
Yes, it would have been July 30th, but the contingency was we had to get permission from BTS. Now, how do you do that? [laughs]. That’s why I looked into it back in July and was told we had to get HYBE to be on board. So, when it passed, we were not ecstatic because we just were like, “Okay, the first hurdle is done. Now, we have to get the big hurdle.”
We even reached out to someone who had connections to the marketing of BTS in the U.S. We got into the corporate office in the U.S., but we really needed Korea. And luckily, I do have a staff member, Gil Ma, who is from my team, who speaks Korean, who is from Korea. So, we just tried to leverage every channel we could to find a way. We ended up in one random division, then we ended up in another. Finally, we made contact.
It was a nail-biter because there was a deadline where we had to secure permission because of the timeline for fabrication of the sign. We were approaching that deadline. We didn’t hear back yet. And every time we send another letter in Korean to Korea, there is a 12-hour time difference. Gil even got a phone call at 5 a.m. one day from someone in Korea to solidify some of the information.
When did the approval come?
It might’ve even come the day of fabrication deadline. I think August 6 was the day that we had to have it confirmed to be able to go to print with design. But then their final came August 10 because they also had to approve the design. So it was like, “Yes, you can do it, but we have to approve the design.”
Some people might wonder why [the sign] not purple because apparently everyone associates BTS with purple. Las Vegas, I think, lit the whole main strip purple to welcome BTS. But when we asked BTS management, they actually said, “No, no, no, we don’t want purple because we’re evolving the brand and the current concert, Arirang, the branding is black and red.” So, the sign is not unlike the Taylor Swift sign that will be black and red as well. They used a City font, standard for road signs. I can’t veer too far from that.
Who’s manufacturing it?
The City’s internal transportation services.
Rogers paid for the Taylor Swift signs. Who is paying for these?
It’s a Sunray Group [Toronto real estate developer] and that was arranged, I think, through the Korean festival.
Originally when news of the motion came out, there was a charity mentioned: NeighbourLink North York, with proceeds to the food bank 415 Food Hub. Did BTS have say in that?
We modeled it off of Taylor Swift’s because we had no other template. So we thought the closest food bank to where we’re installing these signs is run by a charity called NeighbourLink North York. So that was what we did. But because BTS had a lot of concerns because their fanbase is so huge, and they don’t want things to get out of hand or and they don’t want to set a precedence for something, they were very conservative about what they could do. So, there will be no auction for the signs. The charitable component is that the charity can do a lucky draw that is free and then invite people to an event. So, the benefit will not be direct dollars, but attention to their charity.
With Drake’s ice sculpture stunt, fans set out in middle of the night hacking away at it. How can you be sure that the fans aren’t going to try and chop the signs down and steal them?
There is a consideration of the height that they will be put at for that reason. But, we’re doing it for fun to highlight the community and the Korean festival. We can’t take ourselves too seriously in this process and if it garners some goodwill from people to pay attention to a local food bank, then that’s the bonus.
Is there going to be a photo op with members of BTS next to one of the signs?
No, we cannot. Anytime BTS does anything, there’s safety concerns. They probably can’t even let people know when they’re going to the bathroom. That’s how hard it is for them to have a normal life, which probably doesn’t exist for them.
Are you going to either of the shows?
No. One of my other staff members is, but it’s very expensive. And unless you’re that level of a fan, I can listen to songs at the Korean festival and it will be just as fun.
Well, BTS fans, thank you, I’m sure.
I should add that when we were trying to make this happen and we needed councillor support and we needed BTS management support, we actually did engage members of the BTS ARMY, including some that lived here in North York, to mobilize some of the ARMY. So, if you look at the motion, there’s letters from fans. One said something like, “I’m a 60-something-year-old BTS fan and I support this.” It was really sweet to see those letters.
And to my knowledge, they also did a social media campaign where they tagged the management and tried to get support from social media. So, I want to shout out to all BTS army, my gratitude, because it was a team effort because we really had no idea if we were going to get BTS approval.
