Busan Scraps Plan to Mobilize 915 Public Officials for BTS Concert Duties

Busan City has withdrawn a disputed plan that reportedly would have mobilized 915 public officials for safety-related duties around a BTS concert, after the figure triggered internal criticism and public debate. The issue became a central point in the BTS Busan controversy because the concert was described in reports as a paid event led by Big Hit Music under HYBE, rather than a public event hosted by Busan City.¹

The dispute emerged before the June 12-13 performance period listed in Busan’s own visitor information materials, which bundled safety, transport and tourism guidance for concertgoers.² Reports from June 9 to June 11 show that the city moved away from mandatory or large-scale assignment plans and toward staffing based on volunteers, though the reported headcounts differed by outlet and timing.

915 Public Officials Plan Withdrawn

Yonhap News Agency reported on June 9 that controversy spread after a writer identifying as a public official raised the issue of 915 Busan City officials being assigned to concert-related work on an anonymous online community.³ The city said the officials initially were expected to handle safety-management tasks such as traffic control and maintaining order around the event.³

A Busan City official was quoted as saying, “After the controversy arose, we decided to withdraw the plan following internal discussions.”³ The city then moved to operate the workforce mainly with volunteers rather than pushing ahead with the original assignment plan.

Money Today also reported on June 9 that Busan had sought to deploy 915 public officials for BTS concert safety management, but withdrew the plan after resistance grew inside the organization.¹ The outlet framed the criticism around whether public employees should be assigned in large numbers to support a commercial concert run by a private entertainment company.

KNN reported a related but lower figure, saying the city had planned to put about 790 city hall officials and others into the event before changing to a volunteer-centered deployment of about 420 people.⁴ The Korea Daily later reported that Busan had intended to assign 790 officials for traffic and pedestrian safety outside the venue, then adjusted the plan to 340 volunteers after internal pushback.⁵

The differences in the reported numbers appear to reflect different stages, scopes or updates in the staffing plan rather than a single settled figure across all coverage. What is consistent across the reports is the sequence: a large public-official deployment plan drew criticism, the city withdrew or revised it, and volunteer staffing became the replacement approach.

Safety, Traffic and Administrative Support

Busan City’s official materials show that the administration had been preparing a broader response for the BTS performance period before the staffing dispute became public. On June 5, the city said it held a final issue-check meeting for the BTS world tour Busan concert, chaired by the administrative vice mayor and attended by related organizations including fire authorities, police, district offices and Busan Transportation Corporation.⁶

The city said the meeting covered final response plans by area, including safety, traffic and street-vendor enforcement.⁶ This official material did not address the later public-official deployment controversy, but it provides the administrative background for why the city had been organizing safety and transport measures around the event.

Also on June 5, Busan announced that it was operating an integrated information network for visitors to the June 12-13 BTS concert, combining safety, transport, administrative information and tourism content.² The city said the system would use the official website, Visit Busan links and on-site QR systems to guide visitors.²

The dispute therefore centered less on whether the city had any role in managing large crowds and more on the scale and method of using public employees for a privately led paid concert. Reports described criticism from inside the public workforce and the public-official union over the scale of assignment for a commercial performance.⁴

Public Reaction and Revised Staffing

The Korea Daily reported that Busan’s tourism department received both complaints criticizing administrative support for a private concert and civil requests arguing that the city should play a role because of the concert’s expected contribution to the local community.⁵ That account points to the competing pressures on the city: limiting public workforce use for a commercial event while still managing crowd movement, transport and visitor safety during a major entertainment gathering.

The same report quoted a Busan City official as saying, “Fortunately, there were many volunteers, so 340 people were filled.”⁵ It also reported that the city said the organizer would put more than 900 personnel in and around the venue, separating city volunteer staffing from event-side operations.⁵

The current confirmed status from the cited reports is that Busan did not proceed with the initially disputed mass mobilization plan and instead revised the workforce arrangement around volunteers. The remaining issue is the broader policy question raised by the episode: how local governments should balance public safety duties, tourism benefits and limits on public-worker deployment when large private concerts bring major crowds into a city.

작성자 소개

Cloi Lee

Author

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