Since I moved to Japan, I have had requests from friends and acquittance to help them buy concert tickets in Japan. I think many people are unware about the ticket purchasing process in Japan. So, I'll blog briefing about it. It will be based on my experience in buying pop idol concert tickets. So far, I've only been to Big Bang, 2Ne1 and YG Family concerts.
The first round of ticket sales starts in the fan clubs. The fan club members get to ballot for tickets. The number of tickets they can ballot for differs. Sometimes, there may be more than one round of balloting. Fans are notified of their ballot result usually a few weeks later. But they do not know their seats. Fans receive their tickets about two or three weeks before the concert.
After the fan club balloting, the public sales will start. People can buy tickets through online websites such as
http://l-tike.com/
http://www.avexlive.jp/pc/
http://t.pia.jp/
You can also buy tickets from the LOPPI machines in Lawson convenience stores. You can make payment at convenience stores such as Lawson or Family Mart. You can also make payment at post offices. For some websites, credit cards are accepted. I have never tried using credit cards to purchase tickets, so I'm not sure if they accept foreign credit cards.
If you are unable to get tickets from public sales. There are still some options left. First, you can check Japan Yahoo Auction. But you need to have a Japanese registered credit card to create a Japan Yahoo account. Depending on the seat, tickets can be very, very expensive.
Second, you can check third party stores. So far, I've only tried one - yokohama tickets. Again, depending on the seat, price varies. You also need to pay for the ticket asap to reserve the ticket.
Third, you can get try to get tickets from the concert venue. You can check if there are any scalpers around selling tickets. There might be people holding signs to sell extra tickets.
Once again, this is based on my personal experiences in pop idol concerts. The process is less troublesome for less popular artistes.
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ReplyDeleteApart from Pia and Lawson, there's also eplus.
ReplyDeleteIf you're not in Japan, you might want to look into ticket shopping services which buy the tickets for you and send them to where you are. For example JCT.
Hello! Sorry to bother you, but I found your post by googling and I'm just curious what's the possibility of getting tickets at the venue for the YG family concerts.. I'm a teacher in Korea, but will be visiting Japan during the first week of May which happens to overlap with one of the concert weekends.
ReplyDeletehello! sorry to bother you as well but i was googling about purchasing tickets for the YG family concert on aug 15 in Korea and was wondering if you can let me know where i can purchase them? are there any websites that i can purchase them online? thank you in advance!
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