Buying Tickets

Note about Covid Times

The following is possibly only of historic interest at the moment as the reduced number of stadium seats due to Covid and other changes to the ticket allocation to season ticket holders have disrupted the established patterns. Still the best way is to be a season ticket holder or fan club member and follow the club homepage directions every day as to the current situation. There is probably no English language information about this online.

How to get tickets

Looking back, one of the first things that put me off going to a match was that I didn't know where to buy tickets and when or where the team would be playing. Do not let this put you off as it is not so difficult. Compared to when J-League stated it is now very easy to do both.

Team Schedule

Each club publishes its schedule on its homepage. Fans wait anxiously in the winter pre-season to find out the schedule for the rest of year. Once the clubs finish their backroom negotiations the whole league pretty much all reveals their schedules on the same day.

Usually, the starting times of the first half of the season are decided at first. The rest of the season's information is then updated as the year progresses. It is worth coming back occasionally to look the match schedule to make sure that it hasn't changed. Some latter matches have Sat/Sun undecided until they are finalized, usually without much fanfare. Occasionally matches are rescheduled or held on weekdays days due to the club having an ACL match scheduled for that week or to take the pressure of the schedule earlier in the season. Most matches are played on Saturday or Sunday. There is quite often a single Friday night match and the home side has been known to give away a free t-shirt on that match night in conjunction with a streaming TV company. Wednesday night tends to be reserved for cup matches such as the first Levain League Cup stages and then later The Emperors Cup. In the Winter and Spring, most weekend kickoffs are in the afternoon whereas summer matches usually start at 7PM. It can be really hot even at 7PM in the summer. Matches are rarely cancelled for bad weather, even torrential rain which can occur in the Typhoon season. The main consideration for a match delay or postponement is the safety of the fans travelling to the stadium and not the condition of the pitch.

Once you know when are where the match will played you can start planning your trip or your regular supporting activities.

If you are planning to stay overnight, some booking sites allow you to make a booking and cancel it up to a day or two before arrival. So it is possible to reserve a place and then on the last cancellation day look for somewhere better that is cheaper or more convenient. Other supporters might be doing this at the same time so it is worth checking back a few times during the day.

Buying a ticket on the day

In most cases you can buy some kind of ticket on the day of the match but some smaller stadiums will sell out and some away tickets sell out on the day of sale. The most difficult tickets to get your hands on are the unreserved free seating for larger clubs when they play away at a smaller club's stadium. It is more difficult if they are doing well near the end of the season when the glory hunters come out of the closet.

It is worth consulting with fans at the club to find our what they think about the availability of tickets on a particular day. Sometimes supporters will have sources of tickets for sold out matches as they may be tapped into private chat boards or just have tickets to distribute within their group. Supporters will search twitter for people selling tickets that they can't use. People often retweet other people's requests to buy or sell tickets to help them out. Ticket touting is illegal in Japan but the ticket applications have a way to transfer a QR code ticket over Line chat to another person so if your friend buys a ticket for you you don't even have to meet in person before the match day.

In the worst case you can hang a sign around your neck with "I need a ticket" (in Japanese) and someone might take pity on you. I once got a ticket for a sold out match by queuing early at the ticket booth before it opened. A guy, who I never met again, gave me a ticket because his friend couldn't go because he had caught the flu.

Ticket Grades

When buying a ticket you'll need to become familiar with each stadium's naming of stadium areas. It can be bewilderingly confusing. Home is usually named "Home" but away could be "Away" or "Visitor" in Katakana. The seats where the fans sit is in the "Unreserved" or "Free" seating and is behind the goals. The tickets at the sides of pitch with a better view are often more expensive.

At lower league matches, such as J3, the whole stadium may be one price category only, even if it is strictly segregated into different zones for higher league matches at that stadium. An example of this is Mitsuzawa stadium which regularly hosts J1, J2 and J3 matches.

The moral of this story is that you really don't want to be figuring this out in a hurry especially if you are buying tickets that are limited in numbers. Check the details before the day of sale and if necessary get some help. Convenience store staff will probably be clueless unless you hit the jackpot of a person who is knowledgeable about buying J-League tickets and has the time at that moment to help you.

Dynamic Pricing

In recent years clubs have instituted dynamic pricing. This means the price will be cheapest on the first day of sale and then basically get more expensive until match day. The prices have been known to go down but the initial rush tends sell out the allocation for major clubs. Clubs allocate (or if a reduced attendance match, sell) tickets to season ticket holders first, the fan club members, then open sale online and whatever is left on the day. If you turn up at the stadium on the day then you may only be left with the most expensive tickets. If you are travelling to see a particular team, it maybe worth joining the fan club (usually ¥500) to be able to order tickets before the match before they go on sale to the public. This may not even be possible from outside Japan so if you are travelling to see friends and/or relatives in Japan you might need to do it through them.

Ticket Types

Tickets mostly come in three types.

Paper Tickets

Paper tickets. Tickets from the different Convenience Stores come in roughly the same format. They can also be bought in advance at the home end of the stadium for future matches. This may be a bit cheaper.

QR Codes

QR Codes are sometimes available for purchase online. You can either print it out onto a sheet of paper or use your phone. To enter the stadium you hold the code over the scanner at the gate and wait for the tone to confirm that it is valid.

While the QR code ordering system can be a little baroque, requiring extra screens to navigate it does have the advantage that the "ticket" can be sent to someone else by mail. This is useful as you don't have to be physically present to hand over a ticket to someone else.

Some stadiums can't process QR codes directly at the gate and will print out a paper ticket for you in exchange for showing the code. Check this before you enter by talking with the stadium staff at the gate.

Season Tickets

If you plan to go to all the home matches it is really worth getting a season ticket. There are numerous benefits including guaranteed entry when it is difficult to get a ticket. Clubs offer discounts on goods for season ticket/fan club members and preferential entry time before regular ticket buyers. This is the only way to get the front or near the goal in busy stadiums. Recently some clubs have instituted a way for season ticket holders to resell or transfer their ticket to someone else if they can't go to a match.

Convenience Store Quirks

When picking up an online ticket at convenience store you have to be aware of the differences in procedure. With Family Mart, when you buy online you input the ticket claim number to a machine in a store and then take the receipt from the machine to the counter where they print your ticket. With 7-11 you take the ticket claim number directly to the counter and ask them to print that ticket.

Convenience stores companies seem to have their own allocations of tickets so if one store chain is sold out it does mean that other companies allocation is necessarily sold out. e.g. it is common to run to the nearest Lawson or Seven Eleven if Family Mart is sold out in the hope of getting a ticket.

Tickets can come back into the system a certain number of hours or days after the initial date of sale if people don't claim their tickets so it is worth trying again later just in case.

In the end, the best way to be sure to get away ticket is to be well connected and part of a big Japanese group that knows the system and buys extra tickets immediately they first go on sale.

Smart Phone Application

I have found that the ePlus application on the iPhone, and also probably on Android, is a really good way of buying tickets once you are used to it. The navigation, search and setting up of favourites puts it way ahead of the actual convenience store machines and it will remind you on the phone when tickets that you are watching will come on sale. I have bought tickets for matches and concerts while walking down the street or on the way to the match on the train.

It's all in Japanese but once you go through it a couple of times it's pretty much the same pattern of operations each time. When you have paid via credit card or made a reservation you can go to any family Family Mart to print the receipt and pick up the ticket with the number that it gives you.

The only caveat is that it is a front to the web purchasing back end which can fail when instantaneous demand is too high. i.e. everyone in the club waiting to buy a ticket at the moment of sale. In that case, the convenience store machines seem more reliable and crash resistant. This is actually an annoyance for all sites selling tickets. If the ticket sale is popular the site will crash for sure.

J League Site

Tickets are also on sale on the J-League home page. You have to register for an id number and once you have that you can buy tickets online to picked up at a convenience store or sent to you in Japan at extra cost. This is mostly superseded now as the the Japanese official J-League smartphone app has ticket purchasing built in.

Your Club's Fan Club

Tickets are often on sale earlier and more cheaply for fan club members without having a season ticket. You'll need to check the exact details on the club's home page or with help from a friendly fan.

Season Tickets

Serious fans who plan to attend most, if not all, will want to get a season ticket. The method of purchase depends on each club but in my experience you will have to either apply on-line or fill in a form at the club shop or possibly go to a ticket agency like ticket Pia. Once you have the season ticket once you will get a reminder to renew it each year sent by post.

Season ticket holders may get various additional benefits such as being able to enter the stadium early on match days, special offers announced on the homepage or may be invited to club events such as festivals or onto the pitch as flag carriers which are limited to only to season ticket holders.

Most J1 clubs season tickets are based on a smartcard that you touch on a sensor on entry. Other lower league clubs without such sophisticated technology may give you one paper ticket per match to take with you to the stadium.

Some season tickets which are based on eMoney electronic cards may even come loaded with some real money that can be claimed and spent at shops that support that eMoney system.

If you do have a season ticket and forget it don't despair. Make enquiries at the gate as they may be able to look you up via your name and manually process your entry based on seeing your ID. Not all Japanese fans are aware of this and will often buy a ticket if they forget their season ticket.

Kids and Academy Tickets

At some clubs kids get a such discount making it cheaper to get a season ticket if you plan to attend a few matches. Buying a kid's season ticket purely for the purpose of allowing the young person to run into the stadium early to grab a free seat for you to take later with your on-the-day ticket would probably be frowned upon.

If your child is attending the club's football academy they will probably be able to use their academy ID to attend matches as one of the benefits. Parents may also be able to buy additional adult and child tickets at the most cheapest on-the-day price to accompany them into the stadium. Check the academy for details.

Free Tickets

Clubs sometimes give away promotional tickets, especially clubs with cavernous stadiums that they would like to fill. If you have contacts in local businesses, even the local newspaper seller let them know that you are interested in going to see a match. People who receive free tickets are often happy to give them if they are going spare.

Clubs sometimes advertise special events such as free tickets for foreign passport holders during international competitions such as the World Cup. Your contribution is add to the decoration of the stadium and spirit of peace and harmony through football.

How to dispose of tickets

If you inadvertently buy too many tickets it is often possible to resell them especially if they are in short demand. It is also not clear about whether ticket resellingz is legal but it certainly goes on.

Firstly, ticket sales between fans, by convention, seems to be at face price.

As mentioned above, the most popular way to do this seems to be on Twitter. You write a message in Japanese saying which match and how many tickets and then get your fellow supporters to retweet it. Depending on your social media foo, your message can reach hundreds of people within a few minutes. Contacts will come via replies and the details negotiated over direct messages. The most saleable tickets are those for sold out matches. However, people will want to buy from you pre-matchday tickets as those are cheaper than the matchday prices. If you are not confident that about your Japanese ability, or social media popularity, you will probably need help from a Japanese fan who has done this before.

Note that, if you end up with a spare child's ticket, apparently, it is possible to go the ticket booth and pay the price difference to upgrade it to an adult's ticket. The total number of tickets on sale for entry to the stadium are counted on a per ticket basis so you don't need to waste spare kids tickets for a sold out match.

There also may be Facebook or other social media groups such as Line that used for trading tickets. Ask your Japanese friends if they know as these groups are often not publicly advertised.

You could also possibly stand near the ticket booth with your ticket for sale but you may get in trouble for touting.