Part 2 – Concert Event Venue and Entry

So you managed to ballot for the concert ticket, successfully paid for it and reached the concert venue. Now you just need to arrive at the time the concert starts, right? Well, technically yes, but you might miss out on the experience.

Merchandise Purchase

Some concert organizers allow you to pre-order tour merch online, but for my first time attending LiSA’s concert, there was no such option, so I needed to visit the venue earlier and queue to purchase the merch. Typically, for the first venue of a concert tour or for the major cities venues, the queue would be much longer so you would need to allocate a bit more time. In addition, there is a risk that the merch that you are interested in would be sold out. For the LiSA’s concerts that I attended so far, the organizer allowed for pre-booking of an earlier time slot (before the general sales queue start).

In LiSA’s LANDER Osaka concert, I booked an earlier slot and managed to get my merch without any issue and without much queue. On the other hand, for LiSA’s iSCREAM concert in Tokyo (日本武道館)), the concert was only 2 days and only at that venue, so the queue was easily 1 hour long even with the earlier slot and some merch were sold out by the time I reached the counter. So in such cases, you might need to select the earliest timeslot possible.

In order to prevent scalping, so far they limit the quantity you could buy for each item. Sometimes there are venue limited merch, so in order to collect them all, unless you go to all venues, the other way would be to trade with other fans. This social aspects of this is part of the fun.

Socializing with Fellow Fans

So far I do not have any experience for concerts of other Japanese artistes, so I am not sure if they are all the same, but I could say that the atmosphere before LiSA concerts is so fun and wholesome. All the fans were greeting each other, taking photos with each other and often sharing small snacks or novelties. As a person who was just attending my first LiSA concert, I obviously didn’t know anyone but I was still welcomed warmly.

Concert Specific Events / Activities

I am sure there are many different possibilities, but just from the two concerts I attended, I experienced the following:

• Venue check-in with GPS to claim novelties / digital stamp / lucky draw
• Special bonus items (e.g. signed postcards / stickers) with on site purchases of previous CDs
• Viewing of Flower Stands from companies or fans

Entry to Venue

The venue hall typically opens 1 hour before the concert start and in Japan, the start time is pretty much on time. If your ticket is for a Reserved Seat (指定席) then you can pretty much enter anytime within the hour. However, if it is one of those tickets for just entry into a standing area, then you would need to arrive way earlier if you hope to be in front. So far, I don’t really hear famous artistes in Japan operating based on the first-come-first-served entry, but I have experienced it for smaller venues in Namba Hatch (Osaka) for other artistes and I believe outdoor music festivals are the same.

For the two concerts I attended, they checked the ticket for validity and correct entry point, but little was done for bag check or ID verification. However, I have heard that for other artistes / other venues, they could be more strict / thorough. So buying tickets not in your name and not entering together with the main ticket holder is always at your own risk.

This blog became too long once again. The next post elaborates on the etiquettes within the concert hall