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February 7, 2016
If you’re going to Japan and you’re a Johnny’s fan you’d want to see if you can at least get the opportunity to attend a show. Unfortunately, most concerts are fanclub only events and for the rare opportunity that they are not, tickets usually sell out within a minute.
So what do you do? What are your options? Never fear, because this guide is going to help you score the tickets.
- Concert Tickets through Legitimate way
- Playguide Tickets through Ticket.co.jp or TicketCamp.net
- Scalped Fanclub Tickets through above mentioned, idol shops, or Daifuya
- Japanese Addresses and how to get one
- Places to Avoid
- Digital Tickets (or the end of being able to actually get tickets)
1) Getting Tickets the Legitimate Way
a. Through the Fanclub
The legitimate way is joining the fanclub. Luckily, Johnny’s Family Club (the group that manages the fanclubs) don’t care if you live abroad as long as you have an address in Japan and cell phone number in Japan. There’s really no way for them to check if you live in the country or not — and I doubt they would go through the hassle of kicking out foreign fans who happen to live abroad. The best way to join is finding someone who can sign you up on their behalf. The reason why they want the fan to live domestically because they send a out a lot of fanclub related mail such as newsletters, concert information, and anniversary goods.
With your fanclub membership, you’re given an opportunity to ballot for tickets. There’s usually two ways to ballot, either through the postal service using the blue furikomi forms or online.
Balloting with the blue furikomi form requires you to pay for the tickets up front. If you fail to hit, you usually get the money refunded to you. Online balloting does not require an upfront payment but if you hit for multiple concerts you must pay for those tickets. Failure to pay will null and void your ticket and potentially blacklist you from the fanclub.
If you ballot online and hit, you need to furikomi (wire transfer) the money to the account they list in the email within one week of receiving the email. It must be from a Japanese bank account and from the fanclub member with the name exactly matching the name on the fanclub membership. Failure to do this will null and void the ticket. Yes, I know, its fucking anal but whatever.
A failure to hit email looks like this,
A successful hit looks like this,
The didn’t hit email is so cold. 
b. Through Playguide
There’s also this thing called Playguide (プレーガイド), which is like the Japanese equivalent to Ticketmaster in the United States. Playguide is serviced by Ticket PiA, Lawson Ticket, and eTicket. From past experience, Kanjani8 tickets have been serviced by both Ticket Pia and Lawson Ticket. 8sai was Ticket Pia, 8EST was Lawson Ticket, but every concert since Jukebox has been serviced by Ticket Pia.
When there are Playguide tickets, information is usually released through the fanclub so you need to check the J&A website for when there’s going to be a playguide. For 8sai, I remember you could get the tickets online. That was how I was able to get my tickets living in the United States but for some reason every concert since Jukebox has been telephone only.
Phone numbers will be available on the website. It’s usually on a Saturday and starts at 10am but everyone and their grandmother is trying to get in so all you’ll be hearing is the “ただいま大変混み合っています。もうしばらく待っておかけ直してください” (We’re sorry but the lines are extremely busy. Wait a minute and try your call again). And when the lines clear up, finally around 1pm, it’ll say like ” All the allotted tickets have been sold. Thanks for calling. ” or ” Ticket sales are now over “. Something like that.
I have never hit for Ticket Pia playguide through the telephone option. Cell Phones are reportedly horrible to use and its advised to get tickets via a landline since landlines have priority over cell phones. IDK.
2. ) Not So Legit Way But Still Sort of Legit
When you can’t get tickets that way you need to find another way. The only way to get tickets without the risk of getting kicked out of the venue is by searching for playguide tickets on middle man websites.
There are several middle man websites, but the most reliable of them all is Ticket.co.jp and TicketCamp.net. Both of these websites are extremely reliable and you are able to purchase the tickets online.
Again, YOU MUST HAVE A JAPANESE ADDRESS. There is a way around this though — Tenso.co.jp. But I’ll get to that later.
Signing up for these websites are free and require nothing but an email address and a shipping address. Though in order to sell on these websites you must provide proof your identity.
I’ll talk about Ticket.co.jp since I have more experience with that website over TicketCamp.
Ticket.co.jp lists Johnny’s tickets on the front page. Usually when ballot results are announced they’ll automatically start being listed on this site. If you still want to be “legit, I would advise not grabbing the first tickets listed on the website.
Buying through a middle man is a risk. You are not protected in anyway from the concert being canceled, dates being moved, etc. For instance, Ohkura’s non-show at the tour final for Genki Live entitled those con goers to a refund. You do not get the refund, the person who sold you the ticket will get the refund.
Tickets on these websites are also sold for 2x, 3x, 4x, or even 10x the face value of the ticket. Please be aware that you will be paying a SHIT TON OF MONEY to go to a concert that only costs 8,800 yen.
You are able to organize and display tickets according to what you want. Starting from the top, working my way down (because I am too lazy to whip up something nicer in photoshop):
- Concert dates are listed up top, underneath the concert tour. Clicking on the date only shows tickets for that date.
- 絞込み – Basically ” Show Only XXX “, You have the choice of
all tickets （全て）,
tickets with only female names （女性名義）,
tickets with only male names （男性名義）,
tickets with no names（名義記載なし）,
tickets onsale（お得チケット）,
tickets with the ‘relief shipping’（あんしん配送OK）,
remove tickets already told（取引中を除く）,
two tickets（２枚連番）,
or able to purchase one ticket (out of two)（１枚購入可). - 並び – Arrange by
showdate(公演日時),
cheap（安い）,
expensive（高い）,
or new arrival（新着）
For this situation you need to find tickets that are marked with NO NAME (名義記載なし). There is a reason for this. Tickets with no name are general sale playguide tickets. Tickets with names are fanclub or playguide presale.
When you go to purchase your tickets, you got some information to shop from. First is the show name, the show date, the venue, seat location, price, and the buy button.
The tickets listed for this specific show are, face value, around 5,500 yen or 55 USD. They’re being sold at 1.5x the face value.
When searching for general sale playguide, the seating information is way more liberal than FC or presale tickets. You can use this information to figure out where the seat is at by going to the venue website and putting in the information.
For plays, A-type seats are nosebleed. S-type seats are closer to the stage and considered to be premium seating.
For example,
S席 ２階 B列 16 ~ 29番 = S Class, 2nd Floor, Row B, Seat Number 16 ~ 29.
Concert venues usually will list the gate, such as for Arena seating at Kyocera, it would be Gate 1.
When you order the tickets, you will be sent to the order screen which will list all the ticket details. For this particular ticket, there is no information where the seats are at. They will ship the ticket one week before the show date. There are two tickets but you are able to buy one of the two tickets. Usually there are four tickets in most cases like this. They will not blot out the name and it is a female ticket.
Once a ticket is purchased, you have exactly 30 MINUTES to pay for the ticket. Failure to do so will cancel the ticket AND YOU WILL NOT HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE THAT TICKET AGAIN.
You can have the tickets sent to the address registered on your account or to another address BUT YOU CAN’T CHANGE THE NAME OF THE RECIPIENT. So if you need a ticket sent to your hotel room, this would be the place to do it.
You can pay with a credit card, at a convenience store, or through an online furikomi with your bank. I have used foreign credit cards with Ticket.co.jp and not had problems but I can’t say that applies to ALL foreign cards.
If you have a problem purchasing the ticket, I suggest having a backup ready or a friend who can go on your behalf and purchase the ticket for you and you just pay them back.
You do not need to send the seller any messages unless you absolute need to. Sellers do not speak English or any other foreign language. Sellers have the right to cancel a sale if they do not want to do business with you.
You also have an option to send Ticket.co.jp a message, again, not required.
If you run into any issues during the transaction, like not receiving your ticket, Ticket.co.jp will give you your money back. The good thing about this set up is that the seller will not recieve their money UNTIL you receive your ticket. You must report back to the website stating that the ticket has been received in order to release the funds. If not, the seller will badger you to do so.
Once the ticket is paid for, in your hands, and the transaction officially over — enjoy the show!
3.) Totally Not Legit High Risk Way
Purchasing fanclub tickets are a huge risk because the J&A Concert Division do cancel and resale scalped tickets.
What does this mean? Johnny Wota and J&A scour the net for ticket resales. It is a huge no-no to do in the fanclub and will get you and the seller banned from the fanclub if it is found out that you have a scalped ticket. 90% of the time, scalped tickets don’t run into this problem but for the 10% that do, its a huge problem.
If your ticket is blacklisted, it will be listed on the website with the ticket’s number that’s usually located next to the fanclub number. You won’t get turned away at the gate, but usually when you find your seat and someone else arrives and there’s a problem you will be escorted out the arena. This happened to a Japanese girl I followed on twitter. She drove from Nagoya to Tokyo with her husband and kid for Kanjanism and got booted once the person who had a valid ticket arrived.
Resold scalped tickets are usually offered through Johnny’s Web. People get those tickets day of the concert by providing their identification and getting a voucher or something. So if you see your ticket number on the J&A as an invalidated ticket, do not go to the venue. You will be discovered and kicked out.
This is rare and I have never seen this done at a Kanjani8 concert, though I heard of this happening at Arashi concerts — concert staff have the right to ask for your ticket and fanclub ID. If you are unable to produce the fanclub ID or any other identification that matches the name on the ticket, you will be kicked out of the concert.
Again this has never happened, to my knowledge, at K8 or TOKIO concerts but it has happened at other concerts.
But moral of this story is YOU ARE BUYING SCALPED FANCLUB TICKETS AT YOUR OWN RISK.
a) Ticket Middlemen
Everything that was explained above applies to this except you’re dealing with fanclub tickets.
FC tickets are really obtuse and obscure. Seat location are rarely listed and you’re buying blindly. Seating location is usually announced after tickets have been sent out and it’s like at the last minute. Nosebleed seats don’t sell as fast and usually are sold at half “scalped” price usually a week before the concert.
Arena and first 10 rows of stands sell fast and usually are 2x – 10x the face value. Actually, A/B/C block arena tickets always sell for 10man (1,000 USD) plus. Back stage stand seats are usually between 5man – 9man (500 – 900 USD). General stands, first floor, begin at 2man. Second floor stands start at around 15,000 yen and nosebleed are around 1man.
Things to notice are most FC tickets are sold as バラ売り不可, meaning you must purchase BOTH tickets. So if you see a good seat at 3man, be reminded that the total costs would be 6man because you are purchasing 2 tickets. FC tickets are sold in a maximum of 4 tickets per fanclub member. So usually a pair tickets is apart of a series of 4 tickets.
If you see two tickets for sale with バラ売り可, that means you can purchase one ticket at the price listed and not be forced to purchase both tickets.
b) Second Hand Idol Shops
I honestly have no idea about these tickets but I would imagine them to be extremely high risk because they’re out in the open and anyone can report the store but they are available for purchase. I heard idol shops in Harajuku sell them — I do not know for how much. I would imagine closer to the show date the more money.
c) Daifuya aka Creepy Old Japanese Yakuza Men That Mull Around the Concert Venue Like Zombies from the Walking Dead
If you are REALLY hard up and out of options for concert tickets, purchasing tickets from the yakuza scalper people would be the last option. You can spot them out easily because they look like they don’t belong there at all. They’re always mumbling, ” チケットありますかぁ” (Chiketto arimasu ka, do you have tickets) to try and lure people to buy off of them. They also will ask people to sell them their tickets. Purchasing a ticket from them hours before the show starts means they will ask for extreme amounts (like 3man for nosebleed). If you purchase a ticket from them like 30 minutes before the show starts, they’ll probably cut a deal cause they wanna get rid of the tickets.
This is risky as this is illegal.
If you couldn’t get them online or at an idol shop, this is your last option.
4. ) Japanese Address
As mentioned, having a Japanese address is important. If you need one, bother a friend that lives in Japan. If that doesn’t work, there’s Tenso.co.jp that is a middle man mail service.
They do not like to deal with concert stuff and will not ship them abroad but if you are coming to Japan you can have it arranged to be rerouted to your Japanese address.
I recently had to move back to America and since I had unfinished business with the fanclub, I used Tenso and they were great with dealing with my fanclub letters and stuff until I can get back to Japan. They are pricey as they only use the most expensive shipping to CYA themselves.
Hoepfully I’ve covered everything so if you have any questions, leave it in the comments below!
4. ) Avoid These Places!!
There are some places that might be recommended at other websites but I highly recommend that you not use them.
- Yahoo! Auctions or any auction website
Most of the tickets that are blacklisted by the jimusho are those that are listed on auction websites. Not only are the fees to actually get the tickets ridiculous (you need to go through a middle man like shopping mall japan or something) but you have absolutely 0 protection what so ever if the tickets end up being a fraud. Tickets through these websites are like wearing red to a black and white party. They stick out, the site is constantly monitored by J&A, and your chances of your ticket being good the day of the con is extremely low. - Twitter
This is even more riskier than Yahoo! Auctions or other auction sites. The story I mentioned of the girl that got kicked out of Tokyo Dome during Kanjanism? She ‘bought’ her tickets through someone on twitter. She did not know that the tickets were blacklisted and the seller did not inform her of this. Not only was she not be able to attend the concert, she lost out on a lot of money. You really have to know who you’re buying tickets from and be really fucking smart because it can be anyone on that other side and there’s one too many stories of people being ripped off on the website. For every legit person on Twitter, there’s like 5 others probably out there looking to rip someone off.Not to mention that those who are legit, 9 times out of 10 they’re crazy stans who ‘interview’ people before selling the tickets because they don’t want anyone breaking any of the ‘rules’.Twitter is great for trading tickets — lets say you get Sunday but can’t go so you want to trade with someone who has tickets on a Friday. It’s a win-win so the chances of being ripped off are less likely than blindly purchasing tickets.J&A is also watching the website which makes it hard to do any transactions without risk and the business has been pushing and emphasizing more and more against buying tickets second, especially through Twitter or other social networks.
5. ) Digital Tickets
I saw this with Subaru’s concert, but J&A is starting to push towards digital tickets to combat against second hand ticket sales. These tickets will have the member’s face attached to them and will be using QR codes that will be used to simply scan the attendee in. This will allow those at the ticket gate to confirm that the person holding the FC ticket is the actual member.
J&A stated with this concert that they are not issuing any physical paper tickets.
I do not know if this trend will continue but I do know that it will make it extremely more difficult to get FC tickets as each ticket is encrypted with the member’s information.
