Fanclubs

When I was young, I recall wanting to go see a then popular band (Nine Inch Nails) at a concert. You bought tickets via phone or in person back then. We scored 4 tickets and at 16 years old a small group of us went out and had the experience of our teenage years.

As of 2026 the landscape has much changed. Ticket sales are exclusively online. Resale is a huge market, and sites exist just to support those secondhand marketplaces. This means that it is harder to obtain a ticket. This is due to many factors, such as more demand, it is easier to obtain a ticket via the internet, so there is more competition, etc. All of this makes it harder for someone that wants to see a band perform obtain a ticket. In some cases, demand outpaces supply (such is the case for BTS) and it will not be possible to address all of the people that want to see the band.

Rather than try and tackle some of the problems which restrict supply, such as resellers, or make the competition fairer, bands have opted to tackle the problem differently by creating a time limit where tickets are limited to members of their fan club. This makes sense as the band often doesn't control the venues ticket sales approach. The band can only change so much of the process and for them it is easier to simply create an exclusive time limit when people that are paying members of their fan club can obtain a ticket. The fan club prices are not high, and you can subscribe on a monthly basis which makes it accessible by most people. The problem is that also makes it accessible by most scalpers or people that will compete for a ticket simply to resell it.

Japan does ticket sales via random lottery. You enter for a defined time period and then there is a lottery after the fact that distributes the tickets. This approach seems to work the best as tickets are not sold on a first come first sold basis. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, but the same can be said to everyone else. You are not limited by your ping to the server, and you do not have to wait in a long queue to attempt to obtain a ticket, only to see them sell out prior to you getting one.

You still need to be in the fan club though.