Hello Sarah, I hope you are doing well! Since the time for the advance ticket sale is close, and this is my first ever attempt for a lottery ticket, I thought of asking. (Yes, I'm a complete noob when it comes to this, so seasoned fans out there, I hope you can bear with me). What is the usual procedure? I plan to try through Wakana's FC only, since the registration to Keiko's FC seems impossible 😩 (I can send you my experience for that if you want to know what happened, it may help other fans) Anyways, back to the questions! Are you expected to pay the price of the ticket in advance or only if you won? If you pay in advance, do you lose your money if you don't win? How can you claim the ticket? Email or physical? If it's only physical, can we collect it at the venue entrance? Tenso say it's a contraband item for them, so proxy service doesn't seem to handle them unless there is a loophole I'm not aware of. Any other tips will be greatly appreciated. 🙏 Apologies for the bazillion questions, and I look forward to your reply!
No worries.
Regarding your most recent issue with the Keiko FC application, I saw your comment about the Tenso address but I honestly have no idea why you are having trouble with it😔
As for your questions:
What is the usual procedure? Getting tickets for Japanese concerts is a challenge, especially for us overseas fans. It's an extremely complex matter for which there are no simple answers. Throughout the years, I've made countless posts describing the difficulties and hurdles of the ticket application process. Not sure if you've seen any of them but it should be common knowledge by now that it is anything but easy. Unfortunately, there's not ONE specific guideline you can follow since the procedure is very different depending on the ticket platform. I don't want to sound pessimistic but I think it might be a little too late to start dealing with all those things just now. It might honestly be too troublesome (if not to say impossible) for you to get everything you need for a variety of ticket platforms at such short notice.
Anyway, we don't know yet which ticket platform they will use for the lotteries (will make a detailed post once we have more infos) but my best guess is that they will rely on traditional services such as e+ or Lawson Ticket. Usually, you need a registered account to get tickets on those sites. That can be quite tricky since they require an SMS verification via a Japanese phone number. They also only accept Japanese credit cards or convenient store payments so you'll need someone in Japan to handle the payment for you. Sometimes, with FC lotteries, you don't need to use your own ticket platform account, for example, it wasn't necessary to use my Lawson account to apply for Kaji Fes. FC tickets last year. If you are lucky, it will be the same for the Kalafina live so at least the lottery application itself can be done without much trouble. With Wakana's FC, there's also a high chance that they will use SKIYAKI TICKET as platform which I already talked about HERE.
Are you expected to pay the price of the ticket in advance or only if you won?/If you pay in advance, do you lose your money if you don't win? Don't worry, you never pay anything in advance. You apply, wait for the results and if you win, you have a few days to make your payment. If the payment isn't registered in the system before the deadline, your ticket will automatically be canceled.
How can you claim the ticket? Email or physical? Depends on the ticket platform. Newer services such as SKIYAKI are completely digital so you claim your ticket as QR code in a dedicated app. For older services, it's usually an app or paper ticket. As far as I know, the dedicated apps for those platforms are not always available in foreign appstores (I know I struggled with the e+ app but I think the Lawson Ticket app is available) but I never use them so I have no idea how foreigner friendly they actually are. With paper tickets, you usually have to pick them up at the convenience store with your payment number.
Can we collect it at the venue entrance? No, this is only ever an option for on-the-day sales or special overseas ticket services. e+ sometimes offers tickets for overseas fans with very easy procedures so you can pick them up at the venue. However, as of right now, we do not know if they will have those overseas tickets available or not. Usually, the sale gets announced after the FC and general lotteries are over.
Tenso say it's a contraband item for them. Yes, that's true. Tenso has never been a suitable service for tickets. There are some proxy services though that might be able to help you get your hands on a ticket. For example, SOSJapan handles Fan Club and Ticketing Service for overseas fans. They can also respond to very specific requests which is quite conventient. Friends of mine have had good experiences with them so I can recommend the service.
