Is K-pop about to pop in Minnesota? Katseye fans say yes.

As co-founder of BTS’ Minnesota fan club, Kathryn Newsome-Herr has been disappointed to see the South Korean boy band so far skip the Twin Cities on U.S. tours. She now thinks it’s only a matter of time, though.

“I think these shows indicate we’re at a tipping point,” Newsome-Herr said.

The shows she referred to are upcoming tour dates with Katseye and Twice, the two biggest concerts Minnesota has seen from the K-pop realm.

Katseye will kick off its U.S. tour on Saturday with a very sold-out show at the Armory in Minneapolis. They’re not nearly as big as BTS, but the six-member, Los Angeles-based girl group drew thousands of frenzied fans last year to a free appearance at the Mall of America, where an official Katseye pop-up store is being housed this weekend.

As for Twice, its April 12 concert in St. Paul will be the first arena concert by a K-pop music act in Minnesota. The nine-member South Korean girl group is loosely affiliated with the “KPop Demon Hunters” movie craze, which helped push K-pop music even deeper into Middle America this summer.

If these two shows are bellwethers for the K-pop music business in Minnesota, concert promoters can definitely hear fans ringing the bell for more.

Tickets to Katseye’s tour opener in the 8,000-person Armory — unavailable for months via Ticketmaster — are selling for more than $300 on resale sites such as StubHub and TickPick. Twice’s performance at the twice-bigger Grand Casino Arena (formerly Xcel Energy Center) is close to being sold-out on Ticketmaster, with mostly just nosebleed seats or $500-plus VIP Soundcheck seats still available.

“We’re happy to see Minnesota finally getting on the map,” said Toby Vang, who’s in his early 20s.

Vang’s inaugural convention in September at St. Paul RiverCentre was believed to be the biggest of its kind in the Upper Midwest. It drew around 2,000 attendees despite its headlining act, BE:MAX, canceling because of a holdup on U.S. work visas.

Just a week before KPop MinneCon was held, “KPop Demon Hunters” — an animated feature about a K-pop girl group that slays monsters on the side — was named Netflix’s most-streamed movie of all time, with more than 325 million viewers. The lead single from the “Demon Hunters” soundtrack, “Golden,” by the made-for-film trio HUNTR/X, spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and earned a Grammy nomination last week for record of the year.

Adding to the “Demon Hunters” buzz locally is the fact that Arden Cho — the actor who voices Rumi, one of the lead characters — is a graduate of Apple Valley High School. Twice is coming to town riding the “Demon Hunters” tidal wave, since it has two songs on the movie’s soundtrack, including another hit, “Takedown.”

Even before “Demon Hunters” exploded, though, Vang said K-pop groups “already had a dynamic following in Minnesota.”

He pointed to the October 2024 appearance by Katseye at the Mall of America as proof of how much of a local appetite there is for K-pop. Mall representatives estimated the turnout for the free mini-concert to be about 8,000 fans. So it’s no surprise MOA staff jumped at the chance to be one of five sites on Katseye’s tour to house the pop-up store.

Put together by the U.S. clothing/merchandise brand Kpop Nara, the store will be housed in the mall’s rotunda and feature clothing, different copies of the group’s two EPs, plus fan experiences like “photo zones” and a chance to win signed Polaroids from the group’s members. It will be open Friday and Saturday 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

“This is a direct reflection of what our guests are asking for, and we’re proud to be the destination where those experiences can come to life,” MOA representatives said in a statement sent to the Star Tribune.

One of those fans who turned out for the Katseye mall gig in October 2024, Vang saw a deeper explanation for K-pop’s growing popularity as “people wanting something positive.”

“The songs are very clean and have hopeful, positive messages, and I think that appeals to a lot of people now with everything else going on in America,” he said.

“It was mostly families there, but my girlfriends and I had a blast singing along,” she said.

She thinks scenes like that are what’s going to eventually get her favorite group here in concert in Minnesota. BTS is expected to tour the U.S. next year, after its members recently completed 18 months of military service required by the South Korean government. A lot has happened for K-pop in the interim.

“Rising tides lift all boats,” Newsome-Herr said hopefully.

Concert: 8:30 p.m. Sat., the Armory, 500 S. 6^th St., Mpls., sold out, armorymn.com.

Pop-up store: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Fri. & Sat., Mall of America, 60 E. Broadway, Bloomington.