C-ute final concert at Saitama Super Arena, 6/12

[boinsie]

You can announce your US appearance any time now, C-ute...

[AyuHikaru]

^ RIGHT!?

I've already got money put away juuuuust in case, but it's looking less hopeful.

[erin]

Time to plan my trip. Thankfully one of my friends is currently living in Japan and said I can stay with him when I go.

Looks like I'm going to be traveling alone (I'll still be staying with my friend but I can't clearly ask him to take off work for my trip). My boyfriend doesn't think we'll have the money for both of us to go, but he doesn't want me to regret not at least trying to go to the concert because he can't go to Japan this time. Hopefully, some of us can meet up and hang out if you're going.

[Starra]

I'm gonna..... try my best to go. My parents want me to go to Japan this year and I want it to be to see Maimai off, dammit.

W-Would anyone be willing to help me out with getting tickets? I have the money, I just don't know what I'm doing .

[aerosuffly]

Now I just to need to know Momoko's final concert before planing my trip.

[erin]

I can try to help you out Starra.

I decided I'm not going to stay with my friends. I'd rather stay in Saitama, less travel to and from the airport. I'd have to go from Narita to Yokohama then Saitama and just too much travel, too many ways for me to get lost. @__@

I'm going to book my hotel after I get paid next week, after that I'll purchase my plane ticket once I do my taxes. If anyone is interested in rooming together, let me know.

I ended up booking a room in Saitama for 2 days. My friend said he'd help me get there, so I'm still gonna stay with him the rest of my stay. xD

[forgetmenots]

I know for these really big venues, it's often the only days they can easily book, but I do wish that they were doing their final concert on a weekend. My current job doesn't allow me to take any days off at all (unless I"m super sick) because they put all my vacation days in the summer and winter. A Monday is absolutely impossible for me T_T

[Starra]

It's also probably the closest to the anniversary of their formation they could get, which is June 11th.

[erilaz]

W-Would anyone be willing to help me out with getting tickets? I have the money, I just don't know what I'm doing .

Here are the fundamentals:

Since you need to be a Japanese resident and have a Japanese bank account and/or Japanese credit card to buy tickets to Japanese concerts online, we foreigners either have to (a) buy them in person after we get to Japan, or (b) have someone in Japan buy them for us. Option (a) is useless for getting grad concert tickets through regular sales, since they'll almost certainly be sold out before you get to Japan. You'd probably be able to get grad concert tickets from a resale shop after you arrive in Japan (the best for H!P is Gorakudoh in Harajuku), but they'll be expensive. The best solution for option (b) is to have a friend in Japan who will buy a ticket for you.  If your friend is a fan club member and you contact them early enough, they can try to get you a ticket through the fan club lottery system. There's no guarantee that you'll get a good seat or that you'll get a ticket at all. If your friend isn't a fan club member, they can buy a ticket for you at a convenience store when they go on sale.

The basic ticket price for Berryz' final show was ¥9300, so you can expect it to be about the same for ℃-ute. Don't forget about the distinction between individual seats (一般席), where practically everyone will be standing throughout the concert, and family seats (ファミリー席), where everyone must remain seated. Tickets aren't available yet, but the H!P website's concert page will eventually say when regular (non-FC) tickets go on sale:

If you don't have a friend in Japan who can buy you a ticket, that doesn't mean you're out of luck -- you'll just have to pay more. If you've bought anything from a Japanese website that doesn't ship overseas (such as e-LineUP!), you're already familiar with the concept of the proxy service, which will (for a fee) buy stuff for you in Japan and then ship it to you.  I use Tenso to buy from e-LineUP! and I generally use FromJapan for merchandise from Yafuoku (Yahoo! Auctions Japan) and Japanese websites that don't take American credit cards.  But for concert tickets (either at regular price from a convenience store or resold -- usually for more -- on Yafuoku), I always use Juno's Bidservice. I've bought half a dozen tickets through them, and they've always come through for me.  You can read the explanations and the instructions on their website to see how their service works, and also get an idea of their fees.  As an example, in Jan. 2009 I bought a ¥6000 ticket for a stage play that Kago-chan was in, and my total including shipping to my hotel in Japan was US $112.
 
As I said, Juno can be your proxy buyer whether you decide to get a ticket through regular sales or through a Yafuoku auction.  Regular sales will almost certainly be the cheaper option (ticket price + Juno's fees). If you do choose this option, however, Juno will need an appropriate URL (from a ticket website like e-plus or Lawson/HMV) for the ticket you want. 

If you buy your ticket far enough in advance, you can have it sent to your home, but I've never done this myself.  I don't trust international mail to get here on time.  I always have Juno send my ticket to me at my hotel in Japan (indicating when I will arrive there), and that has always worked perfectly for me.

If you can't get a ticket through regular sales or the fan club, I can advise you on how to buy tickets on the second-hand market: on Yafuoku, at a ticket resale shop, or from a scalper (technically illegal, so do this only as a last resort). Whichever option you choose, make absolutely sure that you're selecting a ticket for the right day, time, venue, etc., or you might end up with a very expensive bookmark. Been there, done that.

I hope this isn't too confusing or overwhelming (if it is, blame Japan). I'll be happy to answer any questions. I've bought tickets using every purchase option that I've mentioned.

[Starra]

Makes sense! I do have people in Japan I know that I'll try and ask, since I can send them the money easily. It's just a matter of getting the tickets themselves.

I think I want to go for family seating, since I probably couldn't handle being around all the wotagei . And I don't have the stamina to stand for that long, and I'd feel guilty if I just sat amongst everyone else standing up, but that's probably just me being weird .

At least SSA's a bigger arena, and since the concert's on a Monday that'll give me more of a chance.

Thanks a lot for the info, I really appreciate it :thumbsup:. I'd really like to go to this, since I've been following ℃-ute since they started releasing things (I wasn't quite around when they were formed, but I think I vaguely remember Kanna being announced?) and Maimai's been my H!P oshi for 11 years at this point. I'd also love to go to a Morning Musume。concert but I want my first concert to not be my favourite group so that when (if) I do eventually see MM。, I have some idea of what I'm actually doing. Not that I ever know what I'm doing, but y'know.