When Belonging Comes with a Price

Merch, lightsticks, and how live music quietly made loyalty transactional

Live music is often described as increasingly inaccessible because of ticket prices, but that explanation overlooks a quieter shift that has transformed the experience from the inside out, where the cost of participation extends well beyond entry into the venue. Merchandise, once an optional souvenir, has become central to how fans experience concerts, particularly in K pop spaces where physical objects are built directly into the structure of the show.

The scale of this shift is significant. The K pop memorabilia market reached $2.2 billion in 2025, with sustained growth driven by concert merchandise and limited physical products that now outperform traditional album sales in profitability. https://www.htfmarketinsights.com/report/4371265-kpop-memorabilia-market

Lightsticks sit at the heart of this transformation. Bluetooth synchronisation allows crowds to become part of the visual production, with colour changes controlled centrally during performances, creating moments of collective immersion, but this technology also introduces a new condition for belonging, because participation is no longer symbolic. It is technical.

This becomes especially clear with the updated BTS Army Bomb V2 which was announced alongside the BTS World Tour HYBE confirmed that the latest version is the only model compatible with Bluetooth synchronisation at upcoming BTS concerts. Meaning that older lightsticks, including those many fans have owned for years, will no longer integrate into the live lighting systemhttps://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/art/2025/01/398_389141.html

Many groups have undergone lightstick upgrades ATEEZ, NCT, Seventeen just to name a few and what commonly follows is criticism of the new version feeling cheaper or breaking easier. I had to purchase a new lighting and the globe is constantly opening and at their London show in 2023 the battery part connected to my wrist flew off during the show. Updates make sense if the designs going to change and if a groups had the same design for a long time I totally get it but once you consider the price it never feels worth it. As the old saying goes if it ain’t broken don’t fix it.

For a fandom that has waited years for BTS to return as a full group, this effectively means that fans who want to feel part of the collective experience have no choice but to buy again. Older lightsticks still light up manually, but in a stadium designed around synchronised colour changes, not syncing means standing visibly apart. Financially, this compounds an already heavy burden. Fans already spend over $145 per concert on merchandise, often purchasing multiple items in a single visit. https://www.atvenu.com/post/the-phenomenon-of-k-pop-concerts-merchandise-sales In the UK and Europe, official lightsticks now regularly retail between £70 and £75, before venue mark ups or resale inflation are factored in. https://www.finakpop.co.uk/products/new-jeans-official-light-stick

Live music now feels like a luxury not simply because tickets are expensive, but because emotional inclusion increasingly comes with an itemised cost. To belong, fans must repurchase. To participate, they must upgrade. To be visible within the collective experience, they must comply.