The internet cafe in Seoul was quiet with anticipation as the seconds ticked down.
When the clock struck 8 p.m., frantic clicking sounds filled the room, followed by gasps, cries and groans as dozens of fans of the K-pop supergroup BTS tried to secure tickets to the same concert.
“Please, please, please,” Cindy Antonia chanted as she waited in virtual ticketing queues on three devices: a desktop computer, an iPad and another computer operated by her friend. On the desk, she had arranged three photos of her favorite BTS member, Jungkook, for luck.
But in all three queues she was 10,000th or later, with only 7,000 tickets available. Across the room, a woman’s screen showed her about 4,000th in line.
“How did she manage to do it?” asked Ms. Antonia, 24.
“It’s really just luck,” said her friend, Sasha Brykailo, 27.
Securing tickets for any popular concert can be a frantic experience. Doing it for the first BTS concert since the K-pop supergroup went on hiatus over three years ago — an event that the authorities expect to bring over 200,000 people to downtown Seoul later this month — is an endeavor Ms. Antonia likened to a “blood bath.”
That’s why she was among the BTS fans crowding internet cafes on Thursday night, looking for faster internet speeds to confer a split-second advantage in what the domestic news media has been calling the “BTS ticket war.”
The concert is almost free: The tickets have no face value, with the vendor asking only a 2,000 Korean won ($1.30) processing fee.
In many parts of the world, internet cafes are relics of a time before personal computers with internet access were widely available. But in South Korea, they are vibrant spaces where young people go to play video games or watch videos together. They are cheap (a few dollars an hour), and customers can have food delivered to their consoles.
They’re also a hub for high-stakes online tasks because they are thought to have particularly fast connections. Residents use internet cafes to snap up tickets for concerts and sports events, or to register for college classes.
“If there’s something you need good internet for, you just go to a PC bang,” Ms. Brykailo said, using a local term for internet cafes.
She and Ms. Antonia, both university students in Seoul, were at T1 Base Camp, an internet cafe operated by a brand that also runs a high-profile e-sports team.
It was Ms. Antonia’s third try at buying tickets for the BTS show, a performance at a square in downtown Seoul on March 21. Presales, only open to members of a fan club, were in January, followed by general sales in February. Both sold out almost immediately.
On Thursday, the virtual queue was only the first hurdle. Then came the ticket selection. Ms. Antonia and Ms. Brykailo quickly clicked through seating charts. Again and again, they clicked on a seemingly available seat only to find that it had already been taken.
Many of the fans at the cafe repeated a common view in South Korea that the internet is faster in cafes than in homes. That’s not necessarily true, according to two staff members at T1 Base Camp.
One of them, Park Sehoon, said that while internet cafes generally offer connections that are more stable and less likely to lag, they don’t provide a significant speed advantage.
“It’s the culture,” Mr. Park added. “People are just used to going because they think it’s much faster.”
The cafe had a convivial vibe. Many of the fans there on Thursday came with friends, and bonded with the strangers around them over their shared stress and fandom.
But there was pressure, too. As a group of women screamed and hugged in celebration after securing their tickets, Ms. Antonia grew more tense and Ms. Brykailo urged her to be patient and keep trying.
Eventually, after nearly an hour, Ms. Antonia was on the verge of a breakthrough when the booking site would not accept her credit card.
Ms. Brykailo whipped out hers. They held their breath as Ms. Brykailo pressed the final confirmation button.
Success. Ms. Antonia screamed for joy, and the two friends hugged and laughed.
“I’m so, so, so happy,” Ms. Antonia said, trembling a bit. “I don’t know how to express this feeling.”
She could get something to eat now, she said, which she had been too nervous to do before. She settled in to order some food from her computer screen. Around her, other ticketless fans kept clicking.
Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.
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