Tokyo Girls' Style in Thailand

On the 17th of March, Tokyo Girls' Style was schedule to appear at the J Series Festival and it was announced about 1 month before hand. It didn't take us fans from Malaysia very long to think about it and so  me and my friends decided to buy the ticket to Thailand for it.

Took a real early flight to get to Thailand

So me and my friend, Freitao49 flew from Malaysia on Sunday morning to Bangkok and reached the Don Mueang airport at around 8.30 a.m. I was personally really worried about the whole trip though, because the entrance to the show requires a ticket that is only available through random selection through Facebook. Me and my friends took part but none of us was selected to win the tickets. Freitao49 however, had a friend in Thailand which won the tickets and had reserved him 1 ticket already. So I basically went over to Thailand with no ticket at all. I was pretty much banking on the hope that there's going to be a lucky draw or some ticket give outs that day. Personally I knew it's going to be hard, but if I didn't go at all the chance to be chosen is 0% so I might as well go and increase it to 1%.

So we reached the airport and took a taxi and reached Siam Paragon

That's the name of today's Venue

When we reached the place, I was pretty busy messaging my other friend who was already in Thailand and I didn't realized that STK-san just walked passed me at that very place in the picture. By the time I realized it he was already near the Siam Discovery building. What a wasted chance to say hi to STK-san but oh well.

The mall was opened at 10 a.m so we got in and got lost sort of because we had no idea where is the J Series Festival taking place so we just walked around until we reached the top most floor and saw the sign written "Pavalai" and we knew that we finally found the place.

Counter to redeem your tickets

So we walked in and the first I saw was a guy wearing a TGS Budoukan T-shirt (lol) so I tried to talk to them to ask for help since neither me nor Freitao49 could speak Thai. One of them could speak English so he explained to us that at 11.30 a.m there's going to be a registration session for the lucky draw to get the ticket. Me, excited as I could ever be waited anxiously until 11.30. However once the time came and I grabbed the registration form...

Glyphs!

I have no idea at all how to read those! And the kind gentlemen that helped us before was missing... So I took the courage to ask around and someone explained to us the meaning of each blanks and we registered ourselves ASAP. With that done, we waited for another friend to arrive, mr Nubu515. So we meet up and took some pictures to kill time because the lucky draw will be done at 1.30.

There were some Thai TGS fans that wanted to borrow Nubu515's TGS towel to pose in pictures (lol) and so he kindly lent them his towel for a while and I lent them my TGS Budoukan Parker. And all these are done with neither of us understand each other (lol) Man I should've studied Thai a little bit before coming. Then we met with a Thai fan who called himself Tendou Masaru on the internet that could not speak English but can speak Japanese. Which was a really huge relief for us. We hung out with Masaru for quite sometime and he helped us to communicate with other Thai fans (thank you very much!) and suddenly the lucky draw session started.

Lucky Draw Session

Nubu515 was the last person chosen in the lucky draw (around 00:17:00), which was really awesome! and sad at the same time. So the 3 person who got the tickets went out to buy stuff to give to TGS and I stayed to chill out for a while. I got acquainted to a Japanese family who was sitting behind me and it seems that they have been living in Thailand for quite sometime and I realized that the father is working in the TV company as a cameraman because his daughter been calling out to him a few times when we was around to film the scene. So I was chatting with the family and then all the ticket holder started to go in the hall already and I was getting ready to watch the live viewing and suddenly another lucky draw session started!

I was so excited! So I waited and waited. Then I realized that Masaru, Nubu515 and Freitao49 all are inside the hall already and I was setting things up so that I could run to the stage and grab the ticket as soon as possible if my name was called. So after one after another and luck starts to fade away, suddenly the guy stops for a moment when he drew one paper. Without even TRYING to call the name he just put the name away in his pocket and said something in Thai and everyone there was laughing. I was so confused so I asked the Japanese family what had just happened, they told me that the guy said something like "It was written in English so we'll skip it"

I'm sure, that if somebody took a picture of me at that moment, I'd look like a serial killer already.

so they were about 60++ tickets that was given away through lucky draw, and here's the breakdown

2 Japanese was chosen, both obviously Kat-Tun fans
1 Malaysian was chosen, which was Nubu515
the rest are all female Thai.

In short Nubu515 was the only guy to be chosen while the rest are girls, Kat-Tun fan girls at that too.

At that moment I saw a group of Japanese standing at the ticket redeem counter wearing the blue Budoukan announcement T-shirt. Since I'm already resigned to my fate, I chose to go there and hang out with them. They flew all over from Japan to Thailand and didn't manage to get any ticket as well. One of them went to Singapore for the live last  year too! Dedicated fans for sure!

So the event started with a whole load of CM on Japanese drama and the girls were screaming like a banshee whenever their boy was on the screen and it was annoying as hell because the pitch is too high.

Look at them fangirls =_=

After a whole lot of time wasting with the CM and interviews and stuff it was finally TGS turn to perform. They started off with Futarikiri and I was already hyped because I just looooooooooooove the song!

HOWEVER!

The sound system for the live viewing was really bad. It was too loud and everyone's voice didn't really sound so well. Furthermore during the multiple solo parts, there were times when the microphone just went off at all!

How the hell could that have happened? Stuff like this never happened in Singapore

After Futarikiri, the members did their self introduction but it was the super compact version. Since outside the hall are just full of fangirls and it was just me and the Japanese astalight over there that was rooting for TGS, we just had to make noise to support TGS from the outside because there weren't any other people besides us that would do so. So we cheered the girls' name during their introduction.

Then Aachan started to teach the steps for Onnaji Kimochi. I looked at the other astalights and everyone was like "yup we just need to do this, now that it has come to this!"

So despite being really the minority out there, we danced along throughout the song.

HOWEVER! part 2

Suddenly out of nowhere the sound for the live viewing decrease so much that you could hardly hear for about 5-8 seconds. I was really disappointed with the sound system for the live viewing... The show was over after the 2 songs and I bid the other astalights good bye and waited for my friends to come out from the hall.  I was mentally and emotionally drained already by then and I just wanted to rest because I'm going home on the next day.

My thoughts on the event :
TGS was awesome in the show, it was a pretty prestigious event I'd say. With the stage set and sponsors involved, I'm sure there'd be some pressure when they performed but the girls were awesome as always. The organizer however just sucks.

First of all, ticketing was unclear and random. If you're not going to cater for foreigners, then DON'T give hope or at the very least be clear about it. While many of us are willing fans, travelling and spending money to go to support, but it's really frustrating if you're already there but can't get it at all. I'd rather have the organizer just be clear about it say "This event is for Thai people only" or something like "we're not giving out tickets to foreigners" or something like that. Because out of all those who were chosen through facebook, I don't think any foreigners were chosen (correct me if I'm wrong) I sure as hell was frustrated at the fact that I couldn't go it and I'm sure the Japanese Astalight felt it even more since their travel time to Thailand is a lot longer than mine. Not to mention the money involved too!

Secondly, sound system was too lousy. You're organizing an event with people singing and you can't even ensure that people are getting the best out of the sound? Seriously a fail here. Apparently those who are inside didn't realize the problem with the sound as much, so it basically means those who didn't get the ticket aren't as important I guess. Not paying attention to your sound system outside when you're doing a live viewing? Disappointing.

All in all, I had a great time making new friends and meeting new people but in regards to the event, I have mixed feelings. I'm sure everything that happened was beyond Avex's hand.

Whatever it is, I'm just glad that TGS came over to Asia so early, it just gives more hope that they'll spread out their activities around Asia more and wherever TGS go in Asia, I'll try my best to go as well.

FujiTV, take a hint already! lol