Wanna One Bid Emotional Farewell to Fans at Final Concert

Boy band Wanna One perform at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on Sunday. /Courtesy of CJ E&M

Boy band Wanna One held their farewell concert at Gocheok Sky Dome before tens of thousands of emotional fans on Sunday.

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Wanna One were formed with 11 top winners of the second season of the audition show "Produce 101" on cable channel Mnet and were supposed to work as a group for just 18 months before being dissolved. They started their activities as a boy group in August 2017 after the two-month-long show.

Despite being destined from the start to be disbanded, their popularity was unmatched by any other K-pop groups. The members attracted intense interest from the time they were promising candidates on the show, and they swept numerous music charts and awards and sold millions of albums during their short period of activity.

One of the members, Kang Daniel, attracted 1 million followers on Instagram in just 11 hours and 36 minutes, beating Pope Francis's record of 12 hours, according to Guinness World Records.

Proving their popularity up until the last moment, 80,000 tickets for their four final concerts sold out instantly. Some tickets were resold online at exorbitant prices -- a W119,000 standing-zone ticket fetched more than W10 million (US$1=W1,122).

Even before Wanna One appeared on stage, the mood was emotional, and it stayed that way throughout. Fans cried and shouted as the band members were shown on the big screen hugging and saying farewell to each other.

The group's members will now work separately with their own management agencies. Some plan to join other boy bands or go solo, while others will pursue acting careers.