A few hours ago, Stray Kids announced the dates for the North American and European (Europe and the UK) legs of their RUN IT Tour, so I decided to take a look at the numbers, particularly the capacities of the venues, and compare them with their last tour, dominATE.
The numbers go like this:
RUN IT Tour:
Asia: 1,054,000 (25)
North America: 925,000 (14)
Europe: 426,000 (7)
Total: 2,405,000 (46)
DominATE Tour:
Asia: 924,000 (25)
North America: 635,000 (13)
Europe: 552,000 (8)
Total: 2,111,000 (46)
Since they aren’t visiting Oceania and Latin America (hopefully they will!), I’ll only be counting the shows across these three regions to make the comparison fair. Interestingly, both tours come out to the same number of shows: 46.
ASIA
Their last tour had 25 shows in Asia, and so does this one. However, the venues and the countries they are visiting are quite different. Japan had 10 shows during the last tour, while this time they have 14, four of which will be held at the two biggest stadiums in the country (MUFG and Nissan). This leads to an increase of 282,000 in attendance for this tour (534K for Dominate and 816K for Run It). That’s a 52.8% increase in just a little over a year!
This tour also sees fewer stops in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, going from 4 countries (3 of which had stadium shows) to just 2, with both having arena shows. Only Singapore and Thailand are included this time, with two shows in each country. Indoor Stadium, Singapore (15,000) and Impact Arena, Thailand (12,000) will produce relatively similar numbers to their previous shows at the National Stadiums of Singapore (55,000) and Thailand (35,000), where they sold 31,000 (85% sold) and 20,000 (100% sold) tickets, respectively.
They aren’t visiting the Philippines and Indonesia (in the SEA region) this time, which together amassed an attendance of around 33,000. Only the Indonesian show at Indonesia Arena (16,000) was fully sold out; the Philippine show at Philippine Arena sold around 23,000 tickets, with 77.66% of the total tickets put on sale (around 30,000) being sold. To give you an idea, the average ticket sales for top K-pop acts at the venue are 45,600 tickets, and Stray Kids sold around half of that.
This time, they opened the tour with 5 shows at KSPO Dome, Seoul (15,000). During the 2024 Dominate Tour, they hosted 4 shows at the same venue to open the tour and amassed an attendance of 40,900. Going by the same average (which is pretty conservative considering the stage design is different this time), they should amass an attendance of 51,000+!
Honestly, I was expecting them to perform at a stadium to open the tour this time, especially since they concluded their last tour with 2 stadium shows at Incheon Asiad Main Stadium (30,000), which they fully sold out. K-media reported their combined attendance across the two days to be around 50,000+. If not a stadium, I was at least expecting Gocheok Sky Dome (25,000).
Then we have their shows at Taipei Dome, Taiwan (59,000) and Kai Tak Sports Park, Hong Kong (50,000). Both countries see an increase in venue capacity (7.2% and 257%, respectively) compared to their last tour, when they performed at National Stadium, Taiwan (55,000) and AsiaWorld Arena, Hong Kong (14,000). And iinw, both these shows have sold out.
EUROPE
In Europe, they will be doing 7 shows (as of now) across 7 different countries, whereas for the Dominate Tour, they did 8 shows across 6 countries. The average capacity of the venues across the two tours is 60,800 and 69,000, respectively, which is a drop of 11.88%.
The venue for London remains the same, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (62,000). However, the venue for Paris has been downsized to Plenitude Arena (45,000) from Stade de France (81,000), for reasons I cannot understand, because this means they’ll have to do more shows to accommodate the same number of fans.
They will be performing at the biggest stadium in Italy, San Siro (80,000), an increase of 10,000 from their last show there at Stadio Olimpico, Rome (70,000). Germany also sees an increase of 10,000 this time, as they will be performing at Allianz Arena (75,000) in Munich.
For the Netherlands, they will be hosting a show at GelreDome (41,000). I’m pretty sure there are already concerts scheduled for July next year, so the unavailability of Johan Cruijff Arena makes sense. The same goes for Riyadh Air Metropolitano, Spain (60,000), where they performed in 2025, as they are doing a different venue with a capacity of 55,000.
They will also be hosting a show in Austria, at Ernst-Happel-Stadium (68,000), which is the largest stadium in the country — a first for K-pop acts!
NORTH AMERICA
For North America, firstly, they will be visiting 14 cities across 2 countries and have upgraded to NFL and football stadiums in the region. Petco Park, San Diego (39,000) is the only baseball stadium being used on this leg of the tour.
They will be hosting shows at some of the largest stadiums in the US, which is particularly interesting when compared to their previous tour. The average capacity of the venues in this region is 66,000, an increase of around 35% from the Dominate Tour (48,800)! This will make it the 2nd largest North American leg for a K-pop tour, only behind BTS.
What’s also worth noting is that this increase isn’t just coming from the addition of another show. They are moving towards significantly larger venues across the region, which means the potential audience per concert is increasing quite substantially. With 14 shows and an average venue capacity of 66,000, the estimated attendance comes to 925,000, compared to 635,000 across 13 shows during Dominate. That’s an increase of 290,000 attendees, or 45.7%, with just one additional show!
This also makes North America the region contributing the most to the overall increase in attendance between the two tours. While Asia sees an increase of 130,000, North America alone adds 290,000. In fact, its share of the total attendance goes from approximately 30% during Dominate to 38.5% for Run It.
I think this is one of the biggest changes between the two tours. Their North American touring footprint is expanding considerably, both in terms of the number of cities and the scale of the venues. The move towards larger football stadiums also puts them in a different category in terms of the number of people they can accommodate per show. Of course, actual attendance will depend on how many tickets are put on sale and how well each venue sells, but the available capacity is quite impressive regardless.
OVERALL
The overall estimated attendance for the Run It Tour (2,405,000) is 13.9% higher than that of the Dominate Tour (2,111,000), despite both tours having the same number of shows. The average attendance per show comes to approximately 52,200 for Run It, an increase of around 6,400 from the 45,800 average for Dominate.
What’s particularly interesting is how differently each region contributes to this growth. Asia maintains its position as the largest region in terms of total attendance, increasing from 924,000 to 1,054,000. North America, however, sees the biggest jump, going from 635,000 to 925,000. Europe is the only region experiencing a decline, dropping from 552,000 to 426,000.
The estimated attendance of the tour based on these 46 shows will be 1,809,000, which is extremely conservative. It is calculated by the capacity utilisation of the Dominate Tour which was 75.25%. But I’m pretty sure it will easily go over 2 million!
In terms of regional distribution, Asia accounts for approximately 43.8% of the total attendance for both tours. North America’s share increases from 30.1% to 38.5%, while Europe’s drops from 26.1% to 17.7%. So, despite the overall increase in attendance, the geographical distribution of the tour has shifted quite noticeably, with North America taking up a much larger share this time.
Another thing worth pointing out is that the increase in attendance is happening without any increase in the total number of shows. Both tours have 46 shows, but Run It is projected to accommodate almost 300,000 more people. That’s a pretty substantial jump, especially considering that the tour hasn’t added any additional dates to the combined total across these three regions.
Overall, Run It seems to be a considerably bigger tour in terms of its estimated attendance and venue capacities, with North America being the biggest contributor to its growth, followed by Asia. Europe, on the other hand, sees a smaller touring footprint compared to Dominate.
P.S. One thing really bugging me is the absence of Oceania/Australia dates from the tour. For the Dominate Tour, the 2 dates in Australia was announced with the very first leg. But for this tour, there has been no announcements. The leg performed pretty well, with selling out around 93.5% of the tickets put on sale (63,000 tickets were sold out of 68,000). They also grossed over 7 million USD from just 2 shows. It also remains the best performing kpop tour in the region in terms of attendance (until BTS’ tour there in Feb, 2027) and the 2nd best in terms of revenue.
I can explain (and somewhat even excuse to an extent) the absence of Latin America with the Stray City Festival Run, but I don’t see any reason to not return to Australia.
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