The Excited Concertgoers

The woman next to me was fiddling with her cup and looking through some photos on her phone when her male friend arrived in a flurry of apologies for being late. He was flushed and clearly in a good mood and they began chatting furiously as soon as he sat down. The woman suggested that the man should get the drink bar (all you can drink self-service) as it was only two hundred yen and the coffee was quite decent. When he came back, they returned to their passionate conversation about their shared hobby, going to concerts.

The woman described all the best shops for getting fan goods whilst showing some pictures of what she had recently purchased. This seemed to remind the man of his sure-fire way of securing tickets to a popular gig. “I log in while I’m at work and refresh the page until it’s ready and I swear every time I’m just about to go into a meeting, I get the chance to register for the tickets. It’s as if the website knows that it’s a bad time and just out of spite allows me to register only then. However, when this happens, I always win the lottery and get tickets for the artist I want to see. I’m not lying! This is absolutely the best method, try it next time. Plan a meeting or something at the same time as the lottery* for the tickets you’re hoping to get starts.” He advised his friend while laughing. They both broke into fits of giggles.

They continued to chat about how they went to see Perfume recently and praised the performance highly. They were happy that they had been able to see them before Perfume takes a break. The two friends really got excited as they talked about having visited the goods shop for Oasis, showing each other pictures of what they bought. It appears as if they had also been lucky enough to get tickets for the upcoming Oasis concert so began making plans for where to meet beforehand.

Their unbridled joy when discussing their shared hobby rubbed off on me and I continued to be in a good mood for several days after. Thank you, my dear excited concertgoers!

 

*In Japan it’s common to enter a lottery for concert tickets. Especially for very famous artists. So even if you are able to complete your registration you won’t actually know if you’ve won tickets for the concert until a later date. If you win, you can then proceed to payment. In many cases you also won’t find out your seats or viewing area until closer to the time of the concert.