AmagasakiHosoya Yoshimasahow to get seiyuu event tickethow to participate seiyuu eventjinxjapanguideseiyuuseiyuu infotensai gunshitensai gunshi in kansaiticketsvoice actorYasumoto Hiroki
How to Participate in a Seiyuu Event/ Live in Japan - Sharing My Experience Seeing Hosoya Yoshimasa
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| Tensai Gunshi in Kansai event, April 14, 2019 |
In my last trip to Japan, it was a coincidence that my lifetime-favorite seiyuu (voice actor), Hosoya Yoshimasa-san was holding an event in Hyogo, and I was lucky enough to get a ticket so I would like to share a couple of tips about attending a seiyuu event!
1. Getting the Ticket
Unlike my home country Malaysia where we usually form long queues to buy entrance tickets (or battling online in recent cases), Japan relies a lot on lottery.
Tickets can't be purchased via ticket windows, so you'll need to take note of the online lottery sites for your own seiyuu event!
For my case, the Tensai Gunshi event in Kansai was having a lottery in the site called e+ (e+ site here).
e+ is not the only site that has these kind of lottery. There are other examples such as pia (pia site here) and Disk Garage (Disk Garage site here).
One thing to note is that, not all events for a series will be using just a single type of lottery entry. For example, the radio series event of Tensai Gunshi had their ticket lottery in e+ when for their event in Kansai, but in their upcoming event in August 18 in Chiba, the ticket lottery was done in Disc Garage. So make sure to check out your event homepage for the details!
2. Registering an account
To participate in the lottery, you will be required to have a Japanese address. You will be either required to live in Japan to have a Japanese address, or use your nice Japanese friend's address for registration.
Additionally, a Japanese phone number is also required for registration. If they require a SMS verification of the number, you might want to ask your nice Japanese friend if you could use their number for registration.
There are also cases where I had to use my Japanese number to dial to a given number (happened to me when I registered for Disk Garage). For that, I have a 050 number that can't receive SMS (it's an internet phone number that I use in Japan) but if I top up enough I could give a call to the number for verification - you don't have to speak Japanese, their system will automatically verify your registration.
It is recommended to register according to your passport name (romaji). The will be identity check that you will be required to show your passport or you'll be denied entry!
3. Join the lottery!
Once knowing all the details about your event from your event homepage, then you can start participating the lottery!
These are some information you should take note of:
1. Event starting date
2. Event hours
3. Event location
4. Application starting date and ending date
5. Whether there will be a second application or open ticket sales
6. How the event is held
Generally, seiyuu events have 2 rounds of ticket lottery (some call it raffle but yeah it's the same thing). Usually the second round happens when people don't make a payment after winning the first lottery, or if they had extra seats in general.
Open ticket sales usually are also done online, but is rather difficult to get the tickets since you'd be battling with internet speeds and at many cases card payment may be rejected if your credit/ debit card is not issued under a Japanese bank.
Also, if you are planning to attend a concert like PriLive (Uta no Prince Sama Maji Love Live had 6 concerts up till today), chances are you will also get another code that you can participate the ticket. This extra code can be obtained when you purchase the series DVD/ Blu-Ray disc.
Sometimes, it can happen that some events has Morning and Evening parts, and some events are full-day events for single day, or multiple days. For Tensai Gunshi, it is a single-day event but has two segments: Morning and Evening; but for my previous PriLive experience, it was a full-day event that lasts for two consecutive days.
At these case, you will be asked for your first and second priority, for half day events it will be a selection between morning segment or evening segment, and for full-day events it can be first day or second day of the event (if the event has two days). Just select the time slot that you prefer.
4. Increasing Winning Chances
For my case, I was really in luck to manage to grab tickets by a single entry!
My friends told me that most people make multiple accounts to increase winning chance - which makes sense too.
Some people also join fan clubs (like Miyano Mamoru-san, a famous voice actor in Japan) has his own fan club that members pay a membership fee and join certain events. But of course you can't be creating multiple fan club memberships to join this one.
Creating multiple e+/ pia/ Disk Garage account is technically feasible.
VERY IMPORTANT: If you can't understand Japanese, you can apply using Google Translate to translate the sites. But real question: These events come with talks in Japanese (even in concerts) and there's definitely zero translator/ subtitles so it's a heads up to you if you think you'd be disappointed by not understanding what is going on during an event.
5. Wait for the Results
After submitting your application, just chill, pray hard, and wait till the results announcement.
You'll receive an e-mail to inform you on whether you got the tickets or not.
You can definitely check the results on the sites you've applied too! It'll look something like this:
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| Lottery Winning Status on e+ |
抽選結果(Chuusen Kekka = Draw Results) have only two results: ご用意できました (Goyouidekimashita) that means you've won the lottery, and ご用意できませんでした (Goyoidekimasendeshita) that means you didn't manage to win the lottery.
In point 3 I've mentioned about the first and second priorities. If you happen to wish to join all segments of the event, or you've completely failed to get any tickets in your first and second draw, and also using multiple accounts, read point 6.
If you've won the lottery and have decided that you are definitely going there, then it's time to pay! You have a few options: paying in convenience stores, or paying by credit card.
My card never went through so I asked a super nice friend of mine in Japan to pay for me and I send her back the money via bank transfer (be sure to treat your nice friend if they help you out!). If the payment is not made by the deadline, your winning is automatically cancelled.
The tickets are not immediately issued, and there will be another date that they will inform you about the ticket release.
6. General Sales
This is literally the last resort. For my upcoming August event, there was a second lottery. I won my tickets, but my friend didn't so we've decided to try the general sales.
A good tip is to log in about 15-20 minutes (to the site that sells the tickets) before the general sales start. Anything lesser than that is not going to bring you any good news.
If your internet speed is swift AF you probably have a chance (note: not GOOD chance) to get through the payment gate - but do they take your card? (Refer point 3)
7. If All Fails
Shit happens in life. Sometimes, everything just didn't work well, that's okay.
For many events in Japan there is a chance where video recording by the official staff that will be made into DVD or even Blu-Ray discs!
There are some people saying that you can consider checking out mixi's seiyuu community (link) or checking out Yahoo Auction and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe there is someone that might want to give out an extra ticket for sale but be prepared for two things: (1) spending your entire life savings or (2) you might be denied entry.
8. Getting the Actual Ticket
So, you've won the lottery, and made the payment. You'll be told to collect your ticket, or the ticket will be delivered to your Japanese address, depending on which site you use.
For e+ and pia, tickets can be printed out from Lawson or 7-eleven in Japan. For Disk Garage, tickets will be delivered to your place.
So, if you are opting to pay via convenience store, you will be asked to show a QR code to make a payment of a small fee for them to print your ticket out. This is only when you will know your seat number. You won't know your seat number beforehand.
My April ticket looks like this (with some details covered):
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| Ticket printed from 7-eleven |
The entrance ticket can be issued in Japan, and generally the tickets can be issued even just a couple of days before the event starts! So you can either ask your friend to grab it for you (then you thank him/her and treat your super nice friend some nice food or drinks) or grab the ticket from your nearest Japanese convenience store upon arrival to Japan (book your flights to arrive a few days earlier would be helpful).
Of course if your ticket is the delivery ticket then the ticket will be delivered to the Japanese address you registered.
9. Going to the Event
So, all is good and you got your flight and tickets! Just dress accordingly to the event! If the event has a dress code, follow it. Otherwise a dress, or smart casual is totally fine. If you want to be fancy you can even wear a kimono (I've seen many done so but I personally wouldn't use the money for someone that probably wouldn't know I existed).
If you have questions about traveling to the event spot, check your event homepage, get wi-fi and utilize Google Map. Ask locals if necessary! I accidentally walked into the backstage because I came from a completely opposite direction. LOL.
IMPORTANT: Never attempt to record video/ audio/ snap photos of the event! You risk getting chased out of the hall. It's a serious level of disrespect. If you wish to have a copy of the audio, definitely buy the event DVD/ BD if there are any! :)
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| Amashin Archaic Hall (Amagasaki Cultural Hall) |
Depending on how the event is, it can be requiring just the ticket, or you will need to exchange for a wristband.
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| UtaPri PriLive 6th Stage Wristbands |
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| Tensai Gunshi in Kansai Wristband |
During exchange of wristbands, you will be requested to present a verification document to proof your identity. You'll need to show your ticket(s) and passport.
I used to register my name in kanji, but my name in kanji (nor the reading of kanji translated into Japanese) isn't shown on my Malaysian passport, and I got a series of questions from the staff so I literally just gave up and registered my passport name on the sites.
Once you got your wristbands and entrance, you can enter during the opening hour! There's a 開場時間 (Kaijou jikan) that means when you can enter the hall for your seat, and 開演時間 (Kaien jikan) means when the show will start.
If you have plenty of time before the event starts, consider queueing up for merchandise! Sometimes events such as PriLive have merchandise sales before the event, but smaller events tend to have a booth or tables selling merchandises on the same day.
Generally merchandises do take credit cards and cash! As long as your card is activated for overseas usage it should not be giving you any trouble. You'll be needing to remember your card PIN number instead of expecting being able to use the Visa PayWave function, though.
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| Merchandise for Tensai Gunshi in Kansai event |
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| Tensai Gunshi in Kansai Merchandise (It's a phone case) |
In many cases there are also blind box items, it can be trading badges (most common) or acrylic items. You can buy some and see what you get! It's also a good time to exchange it with someone who's willing to trade the badges too. Try following the event name on Twitter (in Japanese) and you might be lucky! Lots of plus points if you speak fluent Japanese.
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| Event ended at 8PM-ish. I'm happy for sure! |
I think that sums every bit of my experience joining events in Japan!
Will be writing about Hiroshima in my next post!
Until next time!
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