Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience brings the DominATE World Tour to our screens, letting audiences experience the show at the SoFi Stadium from the comfort of theatre seats, and including behind-the-scenes footage as well as one on one interviews will all eight members of Stray Kids.
Whoever named the tour was on the money, as it would seem Stray Kids was out for world domination in 2025. They first came on my radar (other than me hearing the group name in passing sporadically), after the release of K-Pop Demon Hunters when I heard that group member, Felix, was a significant inspiration for Romance Saja of the Saja Boys. (Looking now, I can’t find any information that specifies this, but I can see it). Shortly after that, I got caught in a crowd of Stray Kids getting out of the subway after thei DominATE World Tour concert in Toronto. But make no mistake, if the fans are any indication, they’ve been a big deal.
After leader, Bang Chan, and the members, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N., welcome tens of thousands of screaming fans to the experience, the show kicks off complete with high energy performances, water spraying into the audience, and just-revealing-enough crop tops. I didn’t know any of their music before I watched the show, but you don’t need any previous knowledge to have a good time. Plus, it was fun for me to try and guess at the start of the show who my bias (favourite) would be by the end based solely off their performances. (My answer did not surprise me when I eventually got more information on this person).
But the interviews with the members are where you get to appreciate the show more. They peel back the layers into what it’s like not only to be a ‘Stray Kid’, but an ‘idol’ – aware of the responsibility of having millions of people looking up to you to do a good job; and faced with the reality of being just a human being at the end of the day. The members had a similar rhetoric: getting down sometimes but pulling themselves back up; trying to move away from perfectionism and enjoy the moment, figuring out if Stray Kids member [name] is the same person as just [name]; constantly being in work mode even off stage because of the various elements of creating music and being in a group that need to be balanced. Their sentiments aren’t unique to them, performers have had this push and pull forever, and especially idols in a context that requires absolute – almost manufactured – perfection from them. Truthfully, I would have liked to see more of the group working through these thoughts through the documentary style footage outside of the show. The resolutions to their thoughts did not feel in-depth outside of pushing through for the work/fans, and that’s noble, but I do think it’s important to start highlighting the wholistic care of the artist.
All in all, after the year they’ve had, almost 10 years after their debut, it seems Stray Kids is just getting started.
Stray Kids: the DominATE Experience is in theatres on February 6th, 2026.
