HYBE India sets audition and pop-up dates as Guwahati kicks off the schedule

Guwahati will be the first city in India to host both a HYBE India audition and a Pop-Up Park experience, with the Northeast city opening the entire national calendar on May 2–3.

The schedule, now confirmed through official HYBE India posts, runs from May through July across multiple Indian cities and extends internationally to Singapore, Sydney, London, Toronto, and New York. The audition tour begins in Guwahati on May 3, moves to Mumbai on May 10, and continues through Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, and Chandigarh, closing on July 25.

The Pop-Up Park — a fan experience event separate from the auditions — launches a day earlier in Guwahati on May 2, running through Indian cities before wrapping in Delhi on June 13–14.

The dual calendar confirms what Guwahati's inclusion had already signalled: the Northeast is not a footnote in HYBE India's rollout — it is the starting point.

Korean entertainment giant HYBE, the company behind BTS, is holding the auditions to form a global girl group drawn from Indian talent. Any woman born between 2005 and 2011 is eligible across vocal, rap, dance, acting, and modelling categories. Applications are open until 31 July, with online participation available alongside in-person rounds. Ticketing is handled through BookMyShow, with Snapchat as the platform partner and Samsung Galaxy among the presenting sponsors.

The international legs — Toronto and New York in May, Singapore and Sydney in June, London in July — mark an unusually wide geographic sweep for an India-originated talent search, reflecting both the scale of the Indian diaspora and HYBE's stated ambition to build a group with genuinely global reach.

That ambition comes backed by precedent. Lara Raj, of Tamil-American heritage, performs with HYBE's own girl group KATSEYE. Sriya Lenka from Odisha is a member of BLACKSWAN. Aria, also of Indian origin, is part of the K-pop group X: IN. Each of those breakthroughs has raised expectations for what this search might yield.

HYBE India opened its Mumbai headquarters in September last year — the company's fifth international base after Japan, the United States, Latin America, and China. It is applying the same training model responsible for launching BTS, adapted for an Indian context.

Guwahati's position at the top of the calendar did not happen by chance. Padmapani Bora, Managing Director of Assam Tourism, confirmed he met a HYBE representative in the city last year to explore possibilities in artist development and large-scale concert events, part of Assam's effort to position itself on the global entertainment map. The confirmed schedule suggests those conversations produced results.

Registrations for the auditions are expected to open shortly, according to HYBE India's official channels.