LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — As hundreds of thousands of fans of K-Pop group BTS head into Las Vegas for Memorial Day weekend, numerous small businesses are being inundated with fans after a phenomenon: the BTS Army effect.

BTS will perform at Allegiant Stadium for four nights from May 23 through 28.

Across Chinatown, patrons will see lines outside restaurants and various establishments after a visit from one of the K-Pop band members or the group.

While BTS and members of the boy band have notably visited other popular establishments across Las Vegas, they have been spotted along the Chinatown corridor at popular mom-and-pop shops for good Asian eats.

MORE ON FOX5: BTS brings Arirang World Tour to Las Vegas, local businesses prepare for fan surge

“Where they go, we know it’s going to be good. We know there’s going to be a mob of people, but at least it’s like, our people,” said one fan who is coming in from the Bay Area, who had already seen a prior show locally.

Urban Matcha found a line outside the door, this morning, after band member J-Hope came Thursday for a shaved ice matcha dessert; millions of fans watched videos of the visit circulate on social media platforms.

Fans also visit establishments that appeared on a BTS Army “live feed;” other establishments hold BTS-themed special events with special menu items through the performance dates.

“Our small businesses in Chinatown and small businesses that are members of the Chamber are so excited for BTS to come here the second time around. They bring a factor to them as they love to support small businesses– and as they support small businesses, the Army follows and supports small businesses,” said Catherine Francisco of the AAPI Chamber.

The business boost comes after a packed previous weekend on the heels of the Electric Daisy Carnival in town; hundreds of thousands of attendees headed to Chinatown establishments in search of food and drink at all hours of the day and night.

“Everyone really discovering Chinatown– and its great businesses and great products and food and drinks. We thank them for really supporting small businesses,” Francisco said.

Establishments have ramped up staffing and preparations to accommodate extra patrons in town during the back-to-back EDC weekends and BTS performances, Francisco said.

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James Harden has spent more than a decade as one of basketball’s most mercurial superstars — an MVP, multiple-time scoring champion, 10-time NBA All-Star and one of the most inventive players of his generation. At his 2010s peak with the Houston Rockets, Harden turned step-back three-pointers and foul-drawing into an almost mathematical form of offensive domination, becoming both statistically unstoppable and endlessly polarizing. Few athletes of this era have generated more highlights, more debate or more internet discourse.

Now he may be trying to turn that persona into entertainment IP.

On March 5, Harden released an AI-generated basketball animation to his 11.9 million Instagram followers that focused on his life story, used his voiceover and had near Pixar-like character development. It was ambitious in a way celebrity content rarely is. Working with a leading AI studio, he created a short film that transformed his persona into a larger-than-life animated protagonist, remixing his NBA career into an anime-style mythology built for social media: oversized arenas, hyper-stylized basketball battles, emotional arcs, cinematic pacing. It felt less like a sponsored post than a test case for turning an active NBA player into a self-distributed entertainment universe — without waiting on Hollywood.

During the ongoing 2026 Rocket League Championship Series Paris Major, Epic Games and Psyonix delivered on a major announcement they’d been building up to for weeks, with several professional players and onsite content creators alluding to the announcement over the past few days.

The future of Rocket League will be on Unreal Engine 6, something that’s been highly anticipated by players for years. Rocket League was originally developed on Unreal Engine 3, which has undoubtedly hampered the ability of Psyonix to update the game as regularly as they would probably have liked in recent years.

Unreal Engine 3 doesn’t have many of the contemporary features that developers enjoy with modern engines, and it’s harder to train junior developers on an old engine when they’re more familiar with UE5. We’ve seen teams like Halo Studios and TT Games face similar struggles with old engines before eventually opting to switch to Unreal.

Though many are sure to be excited about the announcement, there are also some concerns. Primarily, players are worried that a new engine might meaningfully change how the game’s physics engine behaves. The core feel of Rocket League is intertwined with how the ball reacts when colliding with one’s car, and any change to those systems will cause a major shock wave in the community.

Still, Epic Games is responsible for both UE3 and UE5, so the chances of the port feeling worse than the original are low. Everyone is looking for the exact same game with shiny new visuals and more content, and that seems to be what Epic is going for.

The Paris Major Storms On

The announcement of Rocket League on UE6 came during the semi-finals of the Paris Major, an appropriate time to make such a massive announcement, given that the event is one of the game’s biggest ever.

The energy in Paris is electric, as three of the competing teams, Karmine Corp, Team Vitality and Gentle Mates, are French organisations and each reached the major’s final six. The fandom of these respective organisations is on full display on the streets of Paris, seen by many as the spiritual home of Rocket League esports.

With the next semi-final being contested by Karmine Corp and Team Vitality to see who will face Twisted Minds in the Grand Finals, the energy of Paris’ La Défense Arena remains frenetic.

Rocket League

Released

July 7, 2015

ESRB

E for Everyone: Mild Lyrics

Developer(s)

Psyonix

Publisher(s)

Psyonix

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