Over the years I have written a lot about the various schemes people have used to acquire tickets, resell tickets, scam people by offering tickets they don’t possess. Ticketing sites and governments have instituted digital hurdles and laws to try to limit these schemes and are often able to only create a solution for a short time before someone figures out a way to circumvent those barriers.
One thing I haven’t really addressed is divine intervention.
Admittedly this situation is a bit less problematic than ticketing scams, price gouging, and the ridiculous litany of fees being added to purchases I usually write about. I figured the topic could use an injection of relative lightheartedness.
The BBC recently reported on 9th century Shinto shrine in Tokyo dedicated to the deity Inari. Originally, people prayed at the shrine for abundant rice harvests and prosperity. At one point the shrine was permitted to host lotteries to generate funds to support itself. In time people started to make offerings for success in lotteries of all types.
And that is where the connection to concert tickets comes in.
There is such a demand for tickets to some concerts, fans need to enter a lottery in order to get a chance to purchase a limited number of tickets.
Fans enter for the chance to buy tickets, and can only purchase them in limited quantities if they are selected. The system is designed to make the process fairer, but some fans look for a bit of divine intervention to boost their odds. If praying at Fukutoku is believed to work for winning scratch-off lottery tickets, fans hope it might bring luck with concert tickets, too.
So many people believe that a show of devotion will boost their odds that the street outside the shrine had to be closed due to the masses who gathered when bands started touring again once Covid restrictions were lifted.
I suspect if I did deeper research I might find there are methods to secure tickets outside of the ticket lottery and praying to kami. From what I have read, there are Fan Club and Pre-Public lotteries where you have to have paid a membership fee or have purchased merchandise of some sort to be entered in a lottery to purchase tickets.
Though many concerts go straight to the Public Lottery phase. While there may be a fee involved, apparently it is relatively small unlike the thousands of dollars people in the US have to donate just to be entered for a chance to buy season tickets to a college or professional sports event.
