K-Pop giants BTS have officially cancelled their Map of the Soul world tour, which has been in postponement limbo since April 2020.

The announcement was made on Thursday (August 19) by their label Big Hit Music via a post on Korean web platform, Weverse.

“Our company has worked hard to resume preparations for the BTS MAP OF THE SOUL TOUR, knowing that all fans have been waiting eagerly and long for the tour,” the statement read.

“However, due to changing circumstances beyond our control, it has become difficult to resume performances at the same scale and timeline as previously planned. Therefore we must announce the cancellation of the BTS MAP OF THE SOUL TOUR.”

“…our sincere apology to all fans who have waited for the BTS MAP OF THE SOUL TOUR to resume. We are working on preparing a viable schedule and performance format that can meet your expectations, and we will provide updated notices as soon as possible.”

BTS were meant to kick off their tour in April last year, but were forced to cancel their four Seoul appearances because of the coronavirus pandemic. They later announced they would be postponing the tour altogether, due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation.

The outfit released ‘Map Of The Soul: 7’ in February last year, following up with ‘BE’ some ten months later. NME gave the latter album four stars in a review, calling it a “sensitive, stunning document of pandemic life”.

It featured singles ‘Fly To My Room’ and ‘Dynamite’, their first fully English song.

They have since released two further English singles ‘Butter’ and ‘Permission To Dance’, with leader RM telling TIME “language doesn’t matter to us that much like [it did in] the past, I guess”.

“You know, we want to transcend everything, even ourselves too. I guess that’s the power of music.”