Lately, I have been getting so many notifications about many artists coming to tour in Japan from all the way from other countries. Conan Gray, Bruno Major, Tate McRae, and so many more! As a concert enthusiast, here are some tips to get good seats at concerts in Japan!
Please note that this is all based on my experience!
Concert ticket basics
First of all, it’s important to know that most concerts in Japan are based on lottery.
You cannot choose your seats like other countries, and even if it’s pit, the number of the order you get to go in is written, so it won’t matter if you come early to the venue (which I think is better than having to camp for god knows how long)!
However, regardless of the lottery, there are ways to get relatively better seats!
The flow of the ticket sales usually goes like this.
Presale (AMEX etc) →LiveNation/Creativeman etc Subscription→ Free Subscription→e-plus/チケットぴあ etc→General Sale
In this order, the seats/the number for pit (整理番号) is better, so it would be better if you could get it in the earlier stages!
how to get tickets
The first presale is usually credit card related, the most I’ve seen is AMEX, and sometimes Mastercard! For reference, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles had the AMEX presale for Tokyo shows! Lucky you if you or someone you know has the card! About the subscription, most western artists either use Creativeman or Livenation.
For Creativeman, there are 3A members and mobile members.
3A is 5500 yen per year, mobile is 495 yen per month!
If you don’t want to pay 5500yen, you have the choice to pay a month and quit the subscription right after you get the ticket! However, 3A members will get better seats than mobile usually! For reference, I had the number 200 when I got the mobile subscription, whilst my friend in 3A got 20!
For Live Nation, the fee is 4000 yearly, a bit cheaper than 3A! Live Nation only has yearly or free subscriptions.
If you are a concert-goer, I personally believe paying 4000 or 5500 yen per year is so worth it! If you are paying the same amount as the person in the very back, wouldn’t it be better if you could see you favorite artists up close?
Moving onto free subscription, the only one I could think of was live nation free subscription. This one only requires you to sign up with your email address, so definitely try this one if it’s available!
The rest are the most well-known ways of getting tickets, with ticket agency sites!However, for most of the general sales, it’s first come first serve, so if you end up getting the tickets last minute, make sure to mark it in your calendar!
To anyone who’s trying to get tickets, good luck!