My quest for Seventeen concert tickets
It's been just over a year since I slipped and fell HARD into the diamond life, and I have spent most of that year waiting and looking for a chance to see Seventeen in concert. My patience has been rewarded, and I'll be attending the Nagoya performance of their FOLLOW to Japan tour this December! It wasn't easy, and a lot of it really just came down to luck, but I thought I'd write about my experience trying to get tickets through various methods in case there's any international Carats who could use some guidance or encouragement.
Missed opportunities and hoping for another world tour
I became a Carat right when Seventeen was in the middle of their Be the Sun tour in North America, but it was my peak busy season at work and I couldn't justify trying to make a trip to see them. It couldn't be helped but I really regretted it later on. In November/December 2022, I traveled to Korea but had short stops in Japan on both ends, precisely when Seventeen was doing their dome tour. At this point there was no legitimate way to get tickets so I resigned myself to at least enjoying some of the Seventeen pop-up events around Tokyo. I also met a fellow Carat living in Japan who was able to attend multiple dates of the tour and I got maaaaajor FOMO.
I told myself that 2023 would be the year - they would come back to the states and I would be willing to drop some dollars to get good seats to see them. I bought my Carat membership to take advantage of any pre-sale - I was READY. It seemed like everyone was anticipating a world tour announcement after the release of FML. I was already feeling pretty antsy because I know Seventeen had a crazy increase in popularity in 2022 (I mean, I'm a part of it) so I was psyching up myself and my wallet for a ticketing bloodbath.
THEN Pledis only dropped two Korea concert dates and 12 dates for Japan for the rest of the year, and Carats around the rest of the world sighed.
Failed attempts to FOLLOW to Seoul
With the FOLLOW (not world) tour announcement, I grew increasingly desperate, particularly because I know there's not much time left with OT13 before the big E period begins. The Seoul dates were at the end of July and not ideal since my work is already ramping up by that time, but I decided if by some miracle I could get a ticket, I would swing a quick trip to attend the concert.
The miracle didn't happen, haha. I applied for the fanclub lottery and missed. After hearing about how ruthless ticketing for Korean concerts is, I pretty much accepted that I wouldn't be able get a ticket during the fanclub pre-sale but I still had to try. I read up on tips and tricks, practiced buying tickets to other events on Global Interpark, and even enlisted my husband to try and help me when the sale started at 1 AM our time. After multiple errors loading the site, we got into the queue with 100,000 people in front of us :,) Needless to say, there was nothing left once we finally got in. I spent a few days after that checking religiously for cancelled tickets, but when Pledis announced that Seungkwan was going to sit out, I decided that it just wasn't meant to be. I ended up watching Seoul Day 2 online and it was such a bittersweet experience because the concert was so amazing, and I wondered when my chance to see them in person would come.
Jumping through hoops to try for Japan concert tickets as a foreigner
After my complete failure in getting Korea concert tickets, I turned to Japan as my last hope to see the boys this year. I didn't know the specifics but I was aware that it's difficult, and sometimes impossible, for foreigners to get tickets to concerts in Japan. To curb scalping, tickets for many popular events are sold through a lottery system, where you apply for the dates/seat type you want, and everything is up to chance whether you get it or not. Popular artists will often have one or two lottery rounds reserved just for their fanclub, so being a member increases your chances. And almost all of this requires a Japanese phone number.
For Seventeen, they usually have a Lawson general lottery open to the general public after the fanclub rounds are over, so I considered using a proxy to try for that. I reached out to a reputable one, but he put me on a maybe list because he had already received an overwhelming amount of requests for the FOLLOW tour. ^^;
Then, the hero we didn't deserve appeared. An international Carat living in Japan posted a very detailed guide on Reddit (now deleted, RIP) on how to join Seventeen's Japan fanclub and the process of applying for tickets through the fanclub lotteries. I don't have a Japanese phone number and address, which is needed for the fanclub, so I didn't think too much of it until I saw other users commenting about borrowing said information from friends who live there. Fortunately, I have a friend in Japan who had previously helped me get a ticket to the Seventeen museum pop-up, and he graciously let me use his phone number and address to apply for the fanclub. I successfully signed up and paid my 6,000 yen fee.
The first round of the fanclub lottery for Saitama / Aichi / Osaka / Fukuoka was open for a little over a week from mid-August, with the results to be announced in early September. You are allowed to apply up to two times for each date, once for premium seats and once for regular reserved seats, but you can only win one type of seat per date. Premium seats are strictly for fanclub members and cost more because they are closer to the stage and come with extra benefits. After some hiccups and a lot of trial and error (needing a VPN, using a Japanese keyboard, Google translate messing with the page functionality), I submitted my lottery entries. I was open to attending five dates, so I applied for both seat types for each day, so 10 entries total. I just needed one to win!
Luck was on my side - success!!!
The day of the lottery result announcements, I was neck deep in work and also recovering from COVID, HAH. I was feeling miserable and trying not to get my hopes up so I wouldn't be too disappointed if I didn't win.
The results came out at 4 PM my time. The Reddit user who made the guide had said that typically, the losing emails come first all at once, and the winning emails will come a few minutes later. That is NOT how it went this time. xD I think there were so many entries and emails to send, the server was overloaded, so the emails just came trickling in, one or sometimes two at a time. I tried checking the results on my Lawson My Page but that was overloaded too, so I kept getting an error. All I could do was wait.
45 minutes and five rejections later, I was steeling myself for 0/10. Then, the sixth email came and I could tell right away that it looked different. I google translated and couldn't believe it - I won a premium seat ticket to Nagoya!!! I screamed and immediately told my husband, my mom, my sister, and my closest friends LOL. Four more rejection emails eventually came but it didn't matter, all I needed was one win and I got it! For this round of lottery, payment had to be made at a Lawson convenience store, so I had my friend go and pay for me. The actual ticket will be available for me to pick up at a Lawson closer to the concert date.
Overall, even with all the difficulties I had, I actually really like the Japanese ticketing system. Of course there are loopholes, but it's definitely a fairer way of making sure that fans can get tickets at a reasonable price. And I'd much rather lose out on tickets based on a random draw than actually trying to buy tickets and failing to get any because I wasn't fast enough. The ticket prices in Japan are also fixed and much, much cheaper than in America. Regular reserved seats for Seventeen were 14,000 yen. The catch is that for that same price, you could get a pretty close seat or a really far seat (and seat assignments are also random), but it is what it is. My premium seat cost 24,000 yen, which, with the very favorable exchange rate converted to $170. Honestly, even at a 1/1 rate, it's still cheaper than a much less desirable seat in America.
Can't wait to FOLLOW Seventeen to Japan!
I'm sooooo thrilled for my first chance to attend a Seventeen concert!! I'm a little nervous because it will be my first time attending a concert at such a huge venue, by myself, internationally, but of course my excitement completely outweighs that. The first thing I did after confirming my win was order the version 3 caratbong (I hate it but I caved because I don't want to be the only Carat in the premium section without a syncing lightstick) and a Hoshi picket (cuz all the Japanese fans have them). My trip is all booked, and December can't come sooner!