Zipangu
Did anybody else go to Zipangu?
The artist’s performances were amazing, but I thought the event organization was terrible. In the Zipangu hashtag on Twitter, I also saw a good amount of posts from both English and Japanese audience members complaining about the lack of time planning for admission, missing opening performances, and the absurdly long merch line. It was actually kind of incredible seeing a few posts cursing about management in Japanese...
I personally got there around opening time (3:20) and was held back over 30 minutes due to admission. That was expected. Unfortunately, it seemed to be a long wait even for early goers, and the opening band was scheduled to start a short 30 minutes after the venue doors opened…
For merch, I waited in line for about 6 hours, watching all of performances from the queue. As if to rub salt in my wound, when I finally arrived at the merch stall, everything I wanted was sold out. They also managed to raise the price on an item I planned to buy from $10 to $15. Why?
I was forced to get some unwanted items since I had mistakenly loaded my non-refundable cash to card with the total of the items I expected to buy. That was my fault. But waiting 6 hours—40 minutes before the event curfew—before I knew? Starving, fatigued, and over a hundred dollars short, I had a hard time trying enjoy myself those last minutes I had to watch the final artist’s performance…
Apparently, they're planning on another Zipangu festival next year as well. I’d say it sounds exciting, but the thought of dealing with this kind of management again makes me want to forget about it. If you went, what did you think? This was my first festival and first time in Pasadena too. I’m not sure if this is something I should normally expect. Were other festivals or concerts at this stadium just as grueling?