JOHNNY'S TICKETING SYSTEM

JOHNNY'S FAN CLUB PROCESS
Hello, I know the questions will start coming in, so I decided to write up an informational post so I'm not bombarded with the same questions.

In order to get tickets for ANY Johnny's concert you must be part of the FAN CLUB (FC). In order to be part of any FC you must have a VALID address in JAPAN. You can sign up for the fan club at the Johnny's office or at any Japanese post office. It takes approximately ONE MONTH or more to get your membership. Therefore if you want to get tickets for this summer you have to sign up for JE this week or you won't get your membership back in time. To join the FC it costs 5000YEN ($50). Once you are in the FC they send out information regarding concerts and events.

The way the ticketing system works is that you are sent a list of dates. Each membership can sign up for FOUR tickets. Meaning 4 seats at any show. When you "apply" for tickets what you do is pick the date and how many seats you want, and then alternates. You also have to make a deposit for all the tickets that you are applying for. Tickets are approximately 6500YEN ($65) and 300YEN ($3) for a mailing fee. Usually tickets will be 7000YEN ($70) per ticket. THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU WILL GET TICKETS FOR THE DAY YOU CHOSE.

About a month later they release what dates you made and if you didn't make certain dates you asked for they give you a money order for the amount of money being returned to you. This is why Johnny's ticketing is called LOTTERY ticketing. It's all about chance whether you "hit" or "miss" the dates you chose.

If there are extra tickets JE will start to sell "general admission" tickets through Lawson's or Ticket PIA. They give you a date to start calling in, and if you get through then you can purchase a ticket even if you are not in the FC. The only problem is, you can only call in if you live in Japan. I know this because I've tried to call from overseas and I get that stupid message about having to live in Japan.

Typically for each day there are TWO shows. An afternoon show and a night show. Usually the afternoon show is around 2PM and the night show is around 6PM. Last year Arashi had 3 show days, but that's very rare.

Seating! You don't know where your seats are until TWO WEEKS before the concert date. It's all based on luck where your seats are. There are 3 sections for seatings. Center, Arena, and Stand. Center is the very middle of the arena where the moving stage passes by. Center seats are the best seats. Arena is the layer right above the center seats. Stand is the very top floor usually the (3rd) floor.

FOREIGN FANS
Many foreign fans cannot get tickets through JE because we don't live in Japan and cannot sign up for the FC. Even if you have a friend in Japan that can sign up for FC for you, at this point if they don't sign up within this week you won't get the membership in time to ballot for tickets. So if you can't ballot how else can you get tickets?

1. Japanese friend - Like I mentioned this would be the BEST way to get tickets. You would get tickets through someone that is already in the FC. But for ticketing on certain dates, such as Jun's birthday, most people aren't going to be willing to give tickets away to such an awesome concert date.
2. Dafuya - Dafuya are scalpers. There will almost ALWAYS be scalpers. All you do is go to the concert venue and when you get out of the train station, or near the stadium, there will be plenty of older guys that look creepy lingering around. At bigger venues like Yokohama Arena there are TONS everywhere and you really cannot miss them. They look creepy, slimy, yakuza like. Cannot miss them. The best thing about dafuya's is that they have a network going so you can actually be picky about the ticket you buy. The front row tickets sell quick so I would advise going early. While the normal ticketing price is about 7000YEN ($70) if you buy from a dafuya then expect front row seats to cost at LEAST $300-$500 PER ticket. If you're not willing to pay this much, you can get crappier seats for less. I once paid $80 for front row on the 3rd floor. This was probably the smartest thing I did because Nino passed right by in front of my face on a hanamachi (elevated cart).
   
3. Auctions - A lot of people like to go through auctions, but there is one down fall. You need to once again have a Japanese address to be able to auction. Some of my friends actually use personal shoppers for auctions, but be prepared to pay a 15% commission fee to get tickets. Not to mention the tickets won't be cheap. Tickets start coming up on auctions as soon as people find out if they have hit a date. If you bid on a ticket before the seats are released, you are paying God knows how much for tickets where you don't even know the seats are. It all depends on chance where your seats end up being. If you bid on tickets after seating is released then of course the prices will be much higher but you'll know where the seat is.

No matter what, if you want CENTER seats you're going to have to AT LEAST pay up about $200 per ticket. $200 is pretty cheap. I have friends that have paid about $600 per ticket for CENTER. It will NOT be cheap. On the other hand if you want seats that aren't that close, then you won't have to pay much. For example, STAND seats, FIRST ROW, you can buy for about 8000YEN ($80) and while it's on the 3rd floor, there is always hanamachi, and there will be a member that will for sure come by. But if you get 3rd floor, 1st row seats, make SURE you are on the LEFT hand or RIGHT hand part of the arena. The hanamachi does not go towards the center of the arena.

With all that explained, this year I can help SOME people get tickets. When I say "help" I mean I'll try my hardest to get you tickets. For people that DON'T CARE AT ALL where they sit, as long as they are at the concert, getting tickets for you won't be hard. For people that want GOOD seats, if you're willing to pay for the tickets, I can help. For anyone else that have specific requests, please refrain from contacting me. As of now I won't be accepting any requests. But I will start accepting requests for tickets for whatever dates once balloting is over and people start finding out which dates they have hit or missed. So if you REALLY REALLY want tickets for this year's natsucon, do not worry, I'm going to try to help as many people get tickets.

With that said, I hope this post was informational and helped a lot of people with various questions. Once JE releases which dates people got, I'll post more information on how to contact me. For now please figure out which concert date you want to go to. DO NOT ASK ME TO GET YOU TICKETS FOR EVERY SINGLE DAY! I WILL NOT, CANNOT DO THAT.

Oh and if anyone wants to know, but why would you guys, I will be going to Japan the last week of August, because I WILL NOT miss Jun's birthday concert. :)