Better Living Through Technology

For a few months now, I’ve been planning an excursion down to Tokyo, to survey the sprawling metropolis that I’ve long dreamed of exploring. While this will mark my third time in what is essentially the world’s most populated urban area, it will be my first visit of any real consequence and will hopefully afford me the opportunity to check out many of the city’s various districts. As I haven’t seen any live music in almost a year, I was also hoping that it would afford me the opportunity to check out a show or two. Swedish indie-pop heartthrob Jens Lekman and northwestern hippie extraordinaire Phil Elverum (currently going by the handle of Mt. Eerie) are playing a show together in Shibuya on the 21st so that seemed like a pretty sure thing. I had also originally planned to see Tokyo post-rockers Mono tomorrow night but when that show sold out last week I suddenly realized that I needed to buy advance tickets for the Mt. Eerie show or risk heartbreak.

Now, having never purchased tickets for anything other than a movie or a train in this country, I wasn’t quite sure where to start. Luckily, the handy Tokyo Gig Guide listed the tickets as being available at Lawson. For those of you who don’t know, Lawson is one of many 24-hour convenience store chains (or conbeni as they are called) located throughout Japan. Unlike in America, you can accomplish many things at convenience stores here that you would never dream of back home: paying bills, sending packages, making payments for online purchases, buying alcohol at all times of day, even purchasing edible food. While this might seem revolutionary, it really stems from necessity; the average Japanese person works later than 5 pm almost every night including Saturday, by which point the banks and post offices are closed. Even though I generally get off of work by 4:15, it’s still really convenient to be able to do some of these things after normal business hours.

Like some of the functions listed above, the purchasing of concert tickets is accomplished through the use of the magical Loppi machine. Short for “Lawson Online Purchasing,” the Loppi allows you to select anything from a travel package to a video game and then prints out a ticket with a bar code that details your order. You then take the ticket to the register where you pay for your purchase; if it’s something like a movie ticket it’s printed out for you at the register whereas large items like computers are delivered to your door. Since the penetration of home PCs is still relatively low in Japan and since credit cards are not widely used, this system has really helped to popularize the idea of online shopping.

As I had never used a device like this before I was a little apprehensive but since it was my only hope, I decided to give it a shot. Armed with an English guide to navigating the menus as backup, I strode into my local Lawson (literally a block away from my house) and bravely faced the terminal. For the most part it was easy to use and I only got stuck once (I hit the wrong key after entering in some of my personal information) but one of the clerks helped me figure out where I went wrong.

A few minutes later I had my tickets in hand and amazingly enough, they were actually cheaper than if I had bought them at the door. After having being extorted at the hands of Ticketmaster numerous times in my life, this was a source of absolute amazement for me. However, the fact that I just paid the equivalent of $30 USD to see an indie rock show was perhaps even more amazing.

Well, with that I’m off to Tokyo for five days with my traveling partner, the always offensive and occasionally charming Ryan Castle. Hopefully I’ll return from my week of revelry full of hilarious stories and incredible photographs. If not, I’ll probably just make some shit up.

P.S. If there’s anything you think I should check out while I’m down there, feel free to leave a message in the comments.