Boy bands breaking up or bleeding group members happens so often that it borders on cliché. But the mega band Seventeen is proving that it’s possible for 13 people to work together for 11 years and counting.
The group wrapped two sold-out nights at Incheon Asiad Main Stadium in Incheon, Korea, this weekend, marking a full-circle moment as they made a triumphant return home.
On Sunday night, the group gave a three-and-a-half-hour run of some of their greatest hits. At the end of the show, the band’s leader S.Coups said the whole team had decided to re-sign with their label, Pledis Entertainment, which comes under the K-pop giant, Hybe.
The band is one of Hybe’s highest-earning groups. Its 2023 album, “FML,” holds the record for first-day sales for a K-pop album and netted more than 6.4 million copies sold. In 2025, Seventeen’s 10th anniversary album, “Happy Burstday,” debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 2.52 million copies in its first week.
Speaking as the group’s representative, S.Coups — whose real name is Choi Seungcheol — said that the band was about to face “something really important” in the next months, and that he wanted to make an announcement before “Carat Land,” their June fan meeting.
“After a lot of deep and sincere conversations among us members, all 13 of us have decided to renew our contracts,” he said. “We will continue to sail on the same ship and row forward together.”
For the uninitiated: Bands like Seventeen and their peers often sign contracts for a fixed number of years. Seventeen last announced a contract renewal in 2021 and were up for renewal this year — their 11th in the business.
Only nine of the group’s 13 members were actively touring due to South Korea’s mandatory military service. In the coming years, five more members of the group will have to enlist.
However, Seventeen signing on as a full team once more means the group will likely reunite after every member completes their military service.
Joshua Hong, one of the group’s two Korean-American members, said the group’s fans were one of their “biggest reasons for re-contracting.”
“Even if all 13 of us aren’t here right now, just think of it as a new chapter,” he said, adding that when the band reunites, fans should expect “great, great things.”
Seventeen debuted in 2015. They are known to be close outside of work — finding apartments, traveling for work and leisure, spending their downtime hanging out, and documenting some of it on videos.
Choi, the first person to join the team, has been with the label since 2009, when he was 14. The others joined the team between 2010 and 2014. They started out their careers living together dormitory-style — going to high school together and sleeping in bunk beds with multiple boys to a room, much like their colleagues, BTS, did back in the day.
They’ve also been on the road and touring together for a decade, since their 12-city “LIKE SEVENTEEN — Shining Diamond” tour in 2016.
Kicking off at the same venue in September last year, the ‘NEW_’ tour spanned 14 cities with a total of 31 shows worldwide, drawing over 900,000 attendees, in person and online.
Xu Minghao, one of the group’s Chinese members, who performs under the stage name THE8, said that though the team is “temporarily pausing” group activities, some of them will still be working together in units, and releasing individual work.
