Fifteen cities. One audition campaign. And a question that is already getting ahead of the evidence: is BIGHIT MUSIC looking for the next BTS?
The official announcement supports a narrower, more useful reading. BIGHIT MUSIC has opened its 2026 Global Audition with online applications and in-person stops across North America, Asia, and Oceania. The campaign is open to male applicants born in 2008 or later, with no nationality requirement and no restriction on the performance category they choose. The online application window runs from September 14 to December 5, while the offline schedule runs from October 3 to December 5, according to Music Business Worldwide's report and the official BIGHIT MUSIC audition site.
That makes the 15-city route more than a promotional number. It is a distribution system for finding talent before the talent has to relocate, understand Korean entertainment networks, or compete only through an online form.
The 15-city map is a funnel, not a successor announcement
One online door, fifteen offline stops
The cities are Los Angeles, Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Tokyo, Osaka, Bangkok, Jakarta, Taipei, Seoul, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Singapore. The Music Ally breakdown shows how the schedule moves from North America to Southeast Asia and Oceania in October, through East Asia in November, and back to Seoul in December.
The structure gives BIGHIT MUSIC two ways to widen the top of its funnel. Online applications make the campaign accessible to people who cannot reach a venue. In-person auditions create a second path for applicants who want to meet judges directly and show more than a carefully edited submission. The official FAQ says there is no pre-registration process for in-person auditions; applicants can register on-site, while online auditions remain available through the application page. The same FAQ also says nationality is not a barrier, although each participant is limited to one audition in their area. See the official audition FAQ before making travel plans because venue instructions and dates can change.
This is a practical design choice. A single Seoul audition would concentrate attention but narrow the pool to people who can travel. Fifteen stops allow BIGHIT MUSIC to test where interest is already dense and where a physical audition can create new demand.
Why these cities matter
Three regions, one talent search
The schedule covers three North American cities, three in Oceania, and nine in Asia. That spread is not proof that every city will produce a future debutant. It does show that BIGHIT MUSIC is treating potential applicants as a global audience rather than a Korea-only pipeline.
For an agency, the value of a multi-city audition is not only the number of people in line. It is the range of signals collected in one campaign: which markets produce the most applicants, which performance categories dominate, how many candidates have already trained, and whether local interest survives after the poster cycle ends. A global audition can function as an early scouting map before a label commits to longer training, relocation support, or a regional partnership.
That logic also fits the wider HYBE ecosystem. BIGHIT MUSIC is associated with BTS, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, and CORTIS, while other HYBE projects have explored locally rooted or internationally assembled groups. Digital Music News places the audition inside that broader expansion of artist development, but the existence of a broad search should not be confused with a confirmed debut lineup or a declared replacement plan.
Related: The Reality of Foreign K-pop Trainees — Visas, Language Barriers, and Cultural Survival
Official image: BIGHIT MUSIC Audition. Separate republication permission was not confirmed.
What BIGHIT MUSIC has actually confirmed
Eligibility is broad, but the age gate is specific
The confirmed rules are straightforward. Applicants must be male and born in 2008 or later. The official FAQ says applicants can apply regardless of nationality, and the reported announcement says there is no restriction on the field they use to show their talent. Singing, rap, dance, acting, modeling, or another discipline can therefore be part of the submission, as long as it demonstrates the applicant's individuality and ability.
The deadline matters too. Online applications remain open through December 5, and the in-person rounds run from October 3 through December 5. The official site and FAQ are the controlling sources for application steps, venue details, and any later changes. News coverage is useful for understanding the schedule, but an applicant should not rely on a reposted list when planning travel.
The campaign's openness is important because it lowers two barriers at once: nationality and category. It does not remove the harder barriers of preparation, language, travel cost, or the uncertainty of entering a long trainee process. Passing an audition is not the same as receiving a debut guarantee.
Official image: BIGHIT MUSIC Audition history. Separate republication permission was not confirmed.
The BTS question needs a label, not a headline
What is fact and what is speculation
Several reports describe the campaign as a search for a new boy band or the next major boy-band sensation. That is media framing around the commercial scale of BIGHIT MUSIC's history, not an official statement that the company is building a successor to BTS. The official audition materials describe eligibility, application routes, and the opportunity to show individual talent. They do not announce a BTS successor, a fixed debut team, or a plan to replicate BTS's career.
Fans may reasonably speculate that a label with BTS's history is looking for its next major growth engine. But that is an interpretation, not a confirmed strategy. The 15-city footprint proves that BIGHIT MUSIC is widening its search geographically. It does not tell us who will pass, whether a group will debut, when that debut would happen, or whether the eventual act would be designed to resemble BTS.
Keeping those layers separate matters for applicants and readers. A “next BTS” headline can create impossible expectations before a single trainee has been selected. The more defensible story is that BIGHIT MUSIC is building a wider intake system for male talent at a moment when K-pop agencies are competing to make global artist development more repeatable.
MEARROW's Take: distribution is the strategy
The sharpest signal in this audition is not the promise of a new superstar. It is the decision to take the first contact point to fifteen cities.
That changes the economics of discovery. An online form can reach almost anyone, but it also produces a noisy and uneven pool. A physical schedule adds local context: staff can see how applicants perform under pressure, identify regional patterns, and learn which markets deserve deeper scouting. The offline stops also turn an abstract global brand into a local event. Someone who would never travel to Seoul may still attend an audition in Singapore, Bangkok, Toronto, or Sydney.
The experiment will be judged later by conversion, not by the number of cities on the poster. How many applicants become serious trainees? How long do they remain in the system? Can BIGHIT MUSIC develop artists whose identity is not simply “the group after BTS,” but something with its own market and creative logic?
Fifteen cities cannot answer those questions on its own. It can, however, give the label a much larger set of answers to work with. That is why the most grounded interpretation is not “BIGHIT has announced the next BTS.” It is “BIGHIT MUSIC is testing how far its talent funnel can travel.”
The takeaway
BIGHIT MUSIC's 2026 Global Audition is open online through December 5 and will visit 15 cities from October 3 through December 5. The campaign is global, the eligibility rules are explicit, and the official FAQ provides the practical application guidance.
The rest is still unknown. Fans can debate whether the search is part of a post-BTS growth plan, but that remains speculation until BIGHIT MUSIC says more. For now, the clearest story is the map itself: the label is not waiting for every ambitious applicant to come to Seoul. It is taking the first audition step to them.
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