Bangkok locations you’ve seen in music videos

Where: 228/3 Chakrabongse Road, Talat Yot, Phra Nakhon

Seen in: LISA – ‘Rockstar’ (2024); also ATEEZ – ‘Halazia’ (2022)

If you know only one abandoned building in Bangkok, it's probably this. New World was a department store until it wasn’t; somewhere along the way, it became the city’s most photographed ruin, with peeling paint, dead escalators and eerie top-floor light. LISA's team made it a centrepiece of ‘Rockstar’, promoting weeks of online debate over whether that escalator scene was staged or genuinely unsettling. The building had already made a K-pop cameo two years earlier in ATEEZ’s ‘Halazia’, giving this filming location that rarest of things: a returning fanbase.

Where: Soi Phetchaburi 39, Makkasan, Ratchathewi

Seen in: LISA– ‘Rockstar’ (2024); aespa – ‘Armageddon’; SEVENTEEN’s ‘Spill the Feels’ promo

This shuttered cinema closed decades ago, yet somehow became busier as a filming location than it ever was as a picture house. LISA used it for interiors and part of the dance sequence; aespa leaned into its dystopian bones for ‘Armageddon’, and SEVENTEEN stopped by for a promotional shoot. Locals say the surrounding soi has its own ghost-story reputation, adding to the appeal. This is one location that needed little dressing up.

Where: Yaowarat Road, Samphanthawong (Chinatown)

Seen in: LISA– ‘Rockstar’ (2024); Troye Sivan – ‘Got Me Started’

The most recognisable stretch on this whole list – and rightly so. LISA’s crew shut it down for three consecutive nights, filming from roughly 2am to 5am as around 100 Thai dancers filled the neon-drenched street. One widely shared shot was captured outside Jumama. Troye Sivan had already run along the same strip with Angèle for ‘Got Me Started’. Two very different pop moods, one red-and-gold backdrop.

Where: Around Charoen Krung, Chakkrawat, Boriphat and Yaowarat roads

Seen in: Agust D (SUGA) – ‘Haegeum’ (2023)

Once known as Bangkok’s Thieves’ Market, this old commercial quarter of shophouses and second-hand stalls is the least ‘designed’ location on the list – precisely why it works. Agust D moves through it as if it weren’t a set at all: – tuk-tuks, shopfronts, decades of accumulated clutter and no CGI sheen. It is the video’s quietest, most human stretch, filmed on real streets.

Where: 98 North Sathorn Road, Silom, Bang Rak

Seen in: Troye Sivan – ‘Got Me Started’ (2023)

Of all the locations on this list, this is the easiest to visit. Troye opens the video walking along the elevated walkway, the Bangkok skyline stacked behind him, and returns to it throughout. No special access and no waiting for a ruin to reopen as an exhibition – simply turn up.

Where: 1599 Sukhumvit 69–69/1, Phra Khanong Nuea, Watthana

Seen in: Troye Sivan – ‘Got Me Started’ (2023)

The video’s big finish puts Troye and a full dance troupe on a rooftop helipad, with the city sprawling below. You can’t go up there yourself – it’s a working helipad, not a viewing deck – but Cielo Sky Bar in the same building gets you close enough to the view to understand the choice.

Where: 700 Nikhom Makkasan Road, Ratchathewi

Seen in: NCT DREAM – ‘Rains in Heaven’ (2024)

This isn’t the Bangkok you’d sketch from memory. The State Railway’s working factory grounds bring together rust, greenery, old carriages and industrial sprawl – exactly the kind of setting that makes you reconsider what ‘central Bangkok’ means. The Thailand Film Office lists it among five locations used for the video, and it is by far the strangest and greenest.

Where: Rong Mueang Road, Pathum Wan

Seen in: LOONA – ‘So What’ (2020)

Bangkok’'s grand old railway terminus – all curved roofs and platform light – does what it does best: resembles a film set even when nobody is filming. LOONA used it in 2020, and the station has continued to accumulate production credits since. One instantly readable image has become shorthand for ‘old Bangkok’.

Where: 612 Si Phraya Road, Bang Rak

Seen in: MAMAM00 – ‘You're the Best’ (2016)

A genuine piece of heritage architecture moonlighting as a pop video set. The building’s distinctive form and colour do most of the work, requiring almost no styling to look camera-ready – presumably exactly what drew MAMAMOO’s team to it.

Where: Kamphaeng Phet Road, Chatuchak

Seen in: SEVENTEEN – ‘Spill the Feels: Speak Up’ (2024)

The new-Bangkok answer to Hua Lamphong is a vast, glassy central terminal that could have come from a transit-obsessed sci-fi film. SEVENTEEN's crew shot the exterior, letting the sheer scale of the tracks and structure speak for itself. Set it beside Hua Lamphong and you have a free, decades-spanning lesson in Bangkok architecture.