Seeing Ayu Live: 2019-2020

[koumori]

Hey guys! I was reading through the chat room today and I realized that we don't really have a modern guide on how to go and see Ayu in concert. Since the TROUBLE tour is now ongoing for a while, I wondered if we could gather any recent advice into one thread so I can pin it in this forum. I'm guessing we'll get a lot of questions over the coming months and it'd be great to have a single place with recent experiences with flying to Japan, getting tickets, buying merchandise, etc

If someone has written anything recently, feel free to copy/paste or link it here too!

[jiarongisme]

This is a very comprehensive site that's not necessarily Ayu specific, but many of the information are relevant and has been helpful to me so far: https://www.japanconcerttickets.com/

[kendelle]

My best advice is honestly being a TA member. I've won 5/7 of my past ballots entered in 2017 and 2019. As jiarongisme mentioned that Japan Concert Tickets is really good as far as simplicity goes. I believe they just buy any ticket in your price range though so you can't really be sure of where you'll sit. I only used them in 2015 so I don't have a recent experience with them.

Buyee is a pretty simple to use middleman for Yahoo! Auctions Japan so unless it's a super time sensitive date you could buy through YAJ and ship a ticket to yourself before you go to Japan. Someone more fluent than me can advise if that's a bad idea lol

Scalpers are at most venues. They aren't as obvious at the smaller hall shows compared to the bigger tours she used to do. If your seats are far from the stage though this could be a way you can get closer. They charge a lot (usually asking about 10,000JPY + whatever ticket you already have) but they can be another way of getting a seat closest to the stage.

Nobody checks tickets for names when you come in (I remember that being a concern back several years ago for 2nd hand tickets). If you're TA and won through the lottery you'll collect and receive your seat about 1 hour before the doors open. You'll need your digital TA pass screenshot (or loaded on your phone browser) plus your passport to redeem your tickets. Foreign TA ticket winners all tend to be sat together in a "gaijin row" between 8-16 rows from the stage and there's normally 6-10 winners per show from what I've personally seen.