Ground K served as the official shuttle package operator for the 2026 Busan One Asia Festival (BOF) BIG Concert. Using Busan Asiad Main Stadium as the central hub, the operation moved more than 614 attendees across three routes — Seoul Station, Busan Station, and Jungdong Station. A RIDEUS white-label booking and QR ticketing system, combined with dedicated on-board staff at every departure point, kept the post-concert mass-exit moving safely and on schedule.
About the Festival — BEYOND 10 : THE NEXT WAVE
The 2026 Busan One Asia Festival ran from 20 to 28 June across Busan under the theme 'BEYOND 10 : THE NEXT WAVE' — marking the festival's tenth edition and signalling a new chapter. The centrepiece BIG Concert took place on 27 and 28 June at Busan Asiad Main Stadium, headlined by AKMU, TREASURE, Lee Young-ji, RIIZE, and other leading Korean acts.
Given the nature of the event, a large share of the audience were K-pop fans travelling from other regions, with a notably high proportion of international visitors from China and Japan. Busan Asiad Main Stadium sits at a distance from major transit interchanges, making large-scale shuttle operations a practical necessity. Ground K designed three routes to reflect this demand structure: a long-distance direct service from Seoul, a city-centre connection from Busan Station, and a Haeundae-linked route from Jungdong Station.
Three Routes — How They Were Structured
The shuttle network divided attendees into three distinct origin zones.
- Seoul Station ↔ Asiad Main Stadium — 234 passengers. A long-distance route for fans travelling directly from Seoul, operated in conjunction with the NOL Shuttle Package.
- Busan Station ↔ Asiad Main Stadium — 299 passengers. Serving the city's primary transit hub, this was the highest-volume route of the three.
- Jungdong Station ↔ Asiad Main Stadium — 81 passengers. Catering to a high proportion of international visitors staying in the Haeundae and Jungdong area, with a return stop at Haeundae Station added for convenience.
Across all three routes, more than 614 passengers used the shuttles, with at least 12 buses confirmed in service. Dedicated boarding stops were secured at each hub in advance to minimise confusion at departure.
RIDEUS White-Label — From Booking to On-Site Ticketing
Attendees selected their route and seat on a dedicated white-label booking page, where they also received their tickets. At the venue, RIDEUS handled ticketing via QR scan. Booking data and live boarding records were synced in real time, giving staff at each hub an instant read on remaining capacity and boarding status.
On the long-distance Seoul–Busan route, a wrong boarding is difficult to rectify on the spot. To prevent this, Ground K distributed guidance cards at boarding with return journey details and published the direct contact for each hub's supervisor in advance. Given the volume of Chinese and Japanese attendees on certain routes, staff also maintained contact through local messaging platforms including WeChat, ensuring language barriers did not delay problem resolution.
On-Site Operations — On-Board Staff and Multilingual Support
The moment a concert ends is the most demanding phase of any shuttle operation. When thousands of people pour through the exits at once, a booking system alone cannot direct them to the right bus.
Ground K addressed a common failure point at large concerts — buses left with only a driver and no dedicated staff, creating gaps in attendee guidance. Every bus had a Ground K team member on board to verify passengers and provide instructions before departure, while fixed supervisors at each hub monitored for issues and resolved them quickly.
With a significant share of Chinese and Japanese attendees at this year's BOF, Ground K deliberately assigned Mandarin- and Japanese-speaking staff across the operation. A CS desk was also staffed on-site to handle any language-related difficulties in the moment.
Safe Completion Under Road Controls
Roads around Busan Asiad Main Stadium were subject to partial closures before and after the concert, coordinated with the relevant authorities. Ground K mapped out routing that accounted for the controlled sections in advance and maintained a live information-sharing channel with on-site supervisors for any changes that arose.
Even as large crowds moved simultaneously following the concert, all passengers reached their destinations without incident. Real-time fleet tracking via T-RiseUp TMS gave operations command a continuous view of each bus's location and boarding status throughout.
Key Takeaways from the BOF Shuttle Operation
In K-pop concert shuttles, scale matters — but so does the quality of the attendee experience at every step. A large-scale transfer operation only runs safely when the booking system, on-site staffing, language support, communications, routing, and contingency response all function as a single, connected workflow.
Ground K brought the same operational approach it has developed across events including the 2025 SBS Gayo Daejeon and the BLACKPINK World Tour to the BOF operation. The RIDEUS white-label booking and ticketing platform, paired with the on-board staffing model at every hub, again proved to be the core infrastructure holding the operation together.
