SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2026
Three days from now, one of the biggest tests in American pop music happens in a Miami arena. KATSEYE — the six-member girl group HYBE and Geffen Records built through the Dream Academy competition — open the North American leg of THE WILDWORLD TOUR at the Kaseya Center on Tuesday, and they’re rolling in with the kind of chart receipts most pop acts spend whole careers chasing: a single ten weeks deep on the Hot 100, a No. 1 EP, and a radio climb that just set a new career high.
The latest Billboard charts, dated October 10, tell the story. “Animal” — the pre-release single off the group’s third EP WILD — is sitting at No. 31 on the Hot 100. That’s ten consecutive weeks on the main singles chart, after the song peaked at No. 24. And the radio story is getting better by the week: on Pop Airplay, which tracks U.S. radio spins, “Animal” climbed to No. 13, a new career high for the group. Radio is usually the last thing to move for a new pop act. It’s moving here.
The EP behind it is holding, too. WILD landed at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 in its seventh consecutive week on the chart — a number that undersells how big the record already was, since it topped the Billboard 200 on the chart dated August 29, the group’s first No. 1. The catalogue is stacking up behind it: all three KATSEYE EPs are on Top Album Sales at the same time, with WILD at No. 13, debut EP SIS (Soft Is Strong) at No. 25 and second EP BEAUTIFUL CHAOS at No. 50. The debut has now logged 52 weeks on the album-sales chart; BEAUTIFUL CHAOS is at 65.
The footprint is global. “Animal” ranks No. 44 on the Billboard Global 200 and No. 43 on Global Excl. U.S., ten weeks running on both charts, while “Hootie Frutti” and “Gabriela” are charting worldwide as well. In the U.K., KATSEYE placed five songs inside the Official Singles Top 40 within a single year — “Internet Girl,” “PINKY UP,” “ICONIC BY MISTAKE,” “Animal” and “Hootie Frutti” — making them the first girl group to do that since Little Mix in 2021, according to Official Charts data. WILD debuted at No. 2 on the U.K. albums chart back in August.
The WILDWORLD route
Miami is just the on-ramp. After Tuesday’s Kaseya Center opener, the tour moves to Atlanta’s State Farm Arena on Oct. 15, Charlotte on Oct. 20, Washington, D.C. on Oct. 22, Belmont Park on Oct. 24, Boston on Oct. 28 and Montreal on Oct. 30, per Billboard’s concert listings. The group is already road-tested: the tour’s U.K. and European run hit Dublin, London’s O2, Manchester, Paris, Amsterdam, Cologne, Antwerp and Copenhagen in September, and this is KATSEYE’s first arena tour.
Six arena dates in eighteen days with a fashion show sandwiched in the middle is a brutal schedule for a group two years past debut. It’s also exactly how you turn a chart run into a touring business — and the group’s live machine has had a full European leg to work out the kinks before the American spotlight finds it.
Sunday’s pit stop: the Victoria’s Secret runway
Between the Charlotte and D.C. dates, KATSEYE will fly to Los Angeles to perform at the 2026 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on Sunday, Oct. 18 — announced by HYBE and Geffen on September 30. They join an all-women music lineup of Tate McRae, Megan Thee Stallion and Megan Moroney, a bill Billboard reported that spans pop, country and hip-hop. The show streams live worldwide at 4:30 p.m. PT; the venue hasn’t been announced.
It’s a telling booking. The revived Fashion Show is pop culture’s biggest crossover stage — music, fashion and television in one broadcast — and this is only the third edition since Victoria’s Secret brought it back in 2024 after a six-year hiatus. Putting a group with KATSEYE’s chart momentum on it signals where the industry thinks the ceiling is.
The machine behind it
KATSEYE were formed under what their label calls HYBE and Geffen Records’ “joint global production system” — the Dream Academy competition that pulled the six members, Daniela, Lara, Manon, Megan, Sophia and Yoonchae, from a worldwide field and documented the whole process in a Netflix series. They debuted in 2024; the WILD No. 1 arrived roughly two years later. That timeline is the point. This isn’t a slow build. It’s an assembly line that worked.
It also continues the K-pop crossover wave we’ve been tracking — the same momentum behind the British Museum’s “Beyond K-pop” exhibition spotlighting how Korean pop culture now travels. KATSEYE just happens to be the version built in Los Angeles, singing in English, and climbing the same American charts the exhibition is about.
“Animal” — No. 31 Hot 100 (10th week), peaked No. 24, No. 13 Pop Airplay (career high). WILD — No. 39 Billboard 200 (7th week); topped the chart Aug. 29.
