As a die-hard SCANDAL fan located in the U.S., I was very excited to learn that not only is SCANDAL coming to the States to perform this June, but that they were going to hold a few special events for fans while they were in Hawaii.

H.I.S., a Japanese travel agency has arranged a very special weekend of activities for SCANDAL fans if you book travel with them. These unheard of perks include:
1. A welcome lei greeting & handshakes from SCANDAL
2. Super rare! Fan meeting invitation!
-SCANDAL acoustic live, game + talk (dinner included)
3. Fan meeting tour in Hawaii limited to participants! Official goods present!
4. You can participate in the Ekiden with other SCANDAL fans as part of SCANDAL team!
-something about matching fans together

(The URL for this is here: http://www.his-j.com/kanto/corp/group/event/scandal/)

Sounds amazing doesn't it? Well, of course it does. I don't think that SCANDAL has ever done any of these things for fans all in one trip or at all before. Because spaces are limited for this opportunity, H.I.S. made this a lottery. If you win, you get to book the trip and all its perks.

Of course, I was eager to enter this amazing lottery. That is until when the aforementioned site went live last night and I found out that they are only offering bookings that originate from Japan and nowhere else. I contacted my local branch of H.I.S. here in the States to see if I could book a trip from LA to Hawaii under the same offer, they replied that the offer was only good for those coming from Japan, thereby excluding anyone else, including local fans.

Why would SCANDAL come to the States just to do an event for only Japanese fans? Why are they excluding local fans from any sort of official event? If SCANDAL values their international fans, why are we being excluded? I don't think this is fair at all and feel that they need to open this up to any fan that wants to enter that is willing to book their travel through H.I.S.

Think about it this way... if SCANDAL came to your country, say the Philippines or Singapore and held Japanese-only fan events that you are excluded from going to in your own country, how would it make you feel? Not very good I bet.

https://www.scandal-heaven.com/t9666p80-scandal-honolulu-ekiden-music-festival-2014

I think you answered yourself :

H.I.S., a Japanese travel agency has arranged a very special weekend of activities for SCANDAL fans

As I said in the main thread, from what I understand this seems to be an activity/advertisement/promo from that japanese society so it's oriented to the japanese fans.

It's really bad if you think about the whole situation for the US fans but you have to remember it's a business and they surely do it for a reason. And by "they" I mean this company, I highly doubt SCANDAL members decided that by themselves.

You have to remember that they have companies behind them and from a fan point of view it sometimes doesn't make any sense at all but for them it does.

And as I was afraid in the main thread after this news, fans are already questioning the SCANDAL members...

Of course you have the right to be angry, sad, disappointed and I would be too if I was in your shoes.

But please also remember that at the start when they announced it it was for a live concert and it still is, they never lied or said something else. You are going there to see the show and you will see it and it will be amazing i'm sure! And while it is unfair for the fan meeting please don't be angry at SCANDAL.

Writing this because I think this will make a lot of US fans angry but you should not be angry at SCANDAL and respect their choice. They were obviously aware of it and surely talked about it during the process but as much as I love to think our lovely band is "free", they still have to obey a lot of rules and what companies want. There is also a high chance that their staff/company just told them that they will have to do a fan meeting and they need to decide what they will do. And by that I mean they probably never asked them if they agree or not.

But yes in the end it sucks and in a perfect world they should have done something else, they should have taken this opportunity to make an US fan meeting to show them some love. Even me i'm disappointed that they don't seize such amazing opportunities to grow the international fan base, it's not everyday they travel to US...

TL;DR : companies love money/promo, our 4 lovely girls surely didn't decide that by themselves, don't be angry at them please and you will still see an amazing live  .love. 

I agree. Big International business/trading are very complicated. Concerning licensing, taxes, regulation, diplomatic relations....etc.
It's never easy for any International artist to having big promoting show in other country especially in big country like USA.
I'm sure SCANDAL are strongly bound with some kind of contract that limited their move.

My English may not good enough to put it clearer right words but I hope all SCANDAL fans could see and understand the "big picture". 

Anyway I hope the show in Hawaii gonna be big success, another step forward for SCANDAL and everyone can enjoy it  

@HaRuRiNaMaMiToMo: I think you're misunderstanding us a bit. We're not "angry" with the band per se, we're "angry" with H.I.S. because they really have no other reasons for excluding us other than they just don't seem to want to open it up to non-Japanese.

Jerry/pacrimguru didn't mention this, but the "Event Section" of H.I.S. Japan is in charge of this tour, and for whatever reason their offices are actually located here in the USA in Honolulu. It's kind of ridiculous how they're selling this package only to people in Japan when the office in charge of the tour is located right here in the US.

I'm nowhere near either countries but just reading through the thread I feel just as offended as you guys. Its like you might as well hold this event in Japan, seriously what is the point of holding such an event if you're going exclude the people that live around that area?

And to begin with, who in the right state of mind would fly over to Hawaii just to see SCANDAL when they could do the same in their own country just by joining SCANDAL's fan club (for all the exclusive stuff)? I'm not sure how obsessed SCANDAL fans can get and how full are their wallets, so lets just see.

I still think it's about regulations and licenses.

As Travel/Tour agency I think H.I.S. USA branch only have a permit to sell a tour packages from Japan to US (or maybe vice versa).

I think H.I.S. is not allowed to create and sell some kind of domestic/local event in or for USA.

Other International Show promoter or Event Organizer might have the license for something like that and can negotiated with SCANDAL management but not H.I.S.

Anyway is just my guessing opinion, please forgive me if I'm totally wrong about it.  .sweat.

In my opinion, they're(travel agency) too bias and too ignorant to realize that they just lost a huge amount of possible consumers. I mean that's just really offensive. They could earn more if they made it a promo for everyone and not just an exclusive buy.

kaitoKid wrote:In my opinion, they're(travel agency) too bias and too ignorant to realize that they just lost a huge amount of possible consumers. I mean that's just really offensive. They could earn more if they made it a promo for everyone and not just an exclusive buy.

I absolutely agree.

Erick M wrote:I still think it's about regulations and licenses.

As Travel/Tour agency I think H.I.S. USA branch only have a permit to sell a tour packages from Japan to US (or maybe vice versa).

I think H.I.S. is not allowed to create and sell some kind of domestic/local event in or for USA.

Other International Show promoter or Event Organizer might have the license for something like that and can negotiated with SCANDAL management but not H.I.S.

Anyway is just my guessing opinion, please forgive me if I'm totally wrong about it.  .sweat.

And.. probably true... but they should have put more consideration into this package prior to its release.

thoseguiltyeyes wrote:@HaRuRiNaMaMiToMo: I think you're misunderstanding us a bit. We're not "angry" with the band per se, we're "angry" with H.I.S. because they really have no other reasons for excluding us other than they just don't seem to want to open it up to non-Japanese.

Jerry/pacrimguru didn't mention this, but the "Event Section" of H.I.S. Japan is in charge of this tour, and for whatever reason their offices are actually located here in the USA in Honolulu. It's kind of ridiculous how they're selling this package only to people in Japan when the office in charge of the tour is located right here in the US.

Well maybe I misunderstood a bit but I was mostly posting also for other fans that might feel like that. Also even if it is pointed at H.I.S there is this line :

Why would SCANDAL come to the States just to do an event for only Japanese fans? Why are they excluding local fans from any sort of official event? If SCANDAL values their international fans, why are we being excluded? I don't think this is fair at all and feel that they need to open this up to any fan that wants to enter that is willing to book their travel through H.I.S.

And yes it is ridiculous and silly, and like kaito said they missed an opportunity/money with US fans.

But as other people mention it, what about regulations, laws and all that?

I'm not trying to defend them, again I would be very angry at H.I.S if I was going to Hawaii (actually I'm even a bit angry now, they are fools to do that and exclude US fans but whatever...) but these kind of things can be difficult and complicated.

They are a japanese company based in Hawaii? Surely there are rules in each country about such business and "lottery". As I said in my other post, things companies do can look totally stupid and silly (oh the number of times I get angry at things like that :/) but sometimes it's complicated and we as fans cannot see the whole picture and how they organize it and what rules they have to work with.

Or maybe they are really a shi*** company, there are no rules/regulation and they just want lots of cash/promo. The thing is we will surely never know, there will be probably no real explanation unless someone working in that kind of business can give us insider infos.

It is very unfortunate to have an overseas event and only allow Japanese to attend. The culture may be different in other countries, but in the US it looks very bad to exclude people based on nationality. Their local fans will certainly decrease if special events are held for Japanese people only (who have many, many opportunities for events in Japan).

I guess what we're all trying to do is figure out how this happened. As I see it, there are four levels: the band, Kitty, Sony, and H.I.S.. I don't know how involved the members were in this decision or if they are just along for the ride and doing what they are told. But at some point someone along the line should have said that this is not fair to their international fans.

As of now, it is what it is. Although I hope I'm wrong, not much can change in this situation. What we can do now is contact as many of the players involved and prevent this from happening again, in the US or any other country. If this comes across as a financial success for H.I.S. they might start offering the same type of tour package in other countries. Not only just for future SCANDAL concerts but for other artists as well. Let's not let that happen. I shot out an email to H.I.S. USA voicing my displeasure. I know they have little, if nothing, to do with this tour but I asked that they pass on our concerns to the proper contacts. If you have an H.I.S. in your country, I encourage all SH members to do the same.

If anyone has email addresses for Kitty and Sony that you might think would be useful please post them.

http://his-america.com/

I think that they probably see this event in general as much for Japanese in Hawaii as it is for Americans. Hawaii is a huge vacation destination for the Japanese. Let's face it - if Scandal really wanted to reach their American fans, they wouldn't be going to Hawaii to do it. That's not where most of their American fans are - they're going to go to California or New York if they want to do something for Americans, and they have plenty of opportunity to do that if they want to.

I think they probably just made a calculation that there's going to be too much demand from Japanese fans for this meet & greet promotion to allow Americans in, and it's still their Japanese fans who are most important to them. This isn't like going somewhere where they have to rely on the local population; at any given time, there are literally hundreds of thousands of Japanese in Hawaii.

H.I.S. is a Japanese travel agency with offices in the US, and it's also in their interests to get people coming over from Japan rather than from inside the US. For one thing, they have travel deals with the Japanese carriers. For another, they make more money on longer trips.

It's a bummer, but it's understandable. Hopefully Scandal will do something more specifically for their American fans at some point.

Spacecadet makes a good point about Hawaii being as much a destination for the Japanese as it is for Americans.  I would like to add to this the idea that even if the goal of the show was to expand their American audience they would have to be worried about getting an audience.  Playing in an empty room not only must be disheartening for the band, it also can affect the perceptions of any who did come to the show.  If I were running a band who was coming to play here in the U.S., where as a rule music from outside the U.S./U.K./Canada is ignored, I might consider trying to find some way to encourage fans from home to come along and up the size of the crowd.  That said, if I was a hardcore enough fan to fly from the east coast to Hawaii to see the show I would probably be angry about being left out of the promotion.

I am so depressed now... that I will probally just skip the Hawaii gig and "TRY" to see them in Japan. It will cost me about the same thing and I can go sight-seeing through Japan as a bonus. 

I wonder if H.I.S. has a Japan Scandal Tour Vacation package for Gaijin. I can always use help getting reservations and show tickets any way. 

SARCASM ALERT: Of course to be fair... no Japanese people should be allowed into the special events. I mean, I am coming from half way around the world, at great expense.

As pacrimguru mentioned above, it's not fair to exclude ANY fans from these special events. American, Japanese, or any other nationality. Those of us who are/were planning to go are not asking for an exclusive US event. We just want a fair shake at this opportunity. This is a lottery even for Japanese with only 120 openings available. As long as you are willing to make your travel plans with HIS, then you should be given the same consideration no matter the country.

propglenn wrote:As pacrimguru mentioned above, it's not fair to exclude ANY fans from these special events. American, Japanese, or any other nationality. Those of us who are/were planning to go are not asking for an exclusive US event. We just want a fair shake at this opportunity. This is a lottery even for Japanese with only 120 openings available. As long as you are willing to make your travel plans with HIS, then you should be given the same consideration no matter the country.

That last paragraph was suppose to be obvious sarcasm. And to help others understand why this exclusion by H.I.S. is so wrong. I shall edit it. There. 

I must admit, I am a huge fan of the California Scandal Fans. If I am ever lucky enough to meet you in person, I would like to buy you a bowl of Ramen or Sushi, your choice. Have a good one.

propglenn wrote:As long as you are willing to make your travel plans with HIS, then you should be given the same consideration no matter the country.

I'm just saying this is all about business, and business is frequently not fair. It's just about how the most money can be made. This is obviously how H.I.S. has determined they can do that; if they can fill 120 slots by selling tickets from Japan to Hawaii on JAL or ANA, who they have the best relationships with and probably the most favorable terms, and where fares would be higher to begin with than domestic flights from the US, then that's what makes the most sense *for them*. And I'd be surprised if they couldn't do that.

It's a bummer like I said, but any time a business has a limited number of anything, they have to figure out the best way of giving that limited thing out. H.I.S. isn't really in the Scandal-promoting business, they're in the travel business. So it's understandable to me that they would limit this in such a way that would make them the most money on travel to this event, rather than in such a way that *we* as Scandal fans think would reward Scandal fans the best. They have their own perspective that's a lot different from ours, and they have no obligation to Scandal fans anywhere, really.

It'd be different if this was the band themselves making this decision, but I'm sure it's not. If Scandal were intentionally excluding Americans, then you could go nuts. But I'm sure it's totally H.I.S., and they'd have valid reasons for doing that. They're not obligated to give up money just so a few Americans can go to a limited package event they've put together. It's just one of those things you've gotta say "oh well" about and either find a way around it or just wait for the next US event.

Just an opinion rather than waste time and energy pushing H.I.S. I think it's better to ask some American-Japan foundation to personally invite SCANDAL. Or maybe some media [TV, radio, magazine] can have exclusive interview which include meet and greet session of American SCANDAL fans ....or something like that  

spacecadet wrote:I think they probably just made a calculation that there's going to be too much demand from Japanese fans for this meet & greet promotion to allow Americans in, and it's still their Japanese fans who are most important to them.

When they play other countries, and even the last time they played the US, they don't have Japanese-only events. It's borderline offensive to travel overseas and then only meet with fans who also traveled overseas and exclude the local fans. Why not meet with everyone?

It's as if Lady GaGa had a fan meet in Tokyo but only allowed Americans. Japanese fans would naturally wonder why they couldn't participate when Lady GaGa was in their country after all.

its a bummer that we won't be able to participate but i get where everyone's coming from. yeah we got the short end of the stick but hey what are we gonna do about it. just my opinion, i mean for all we know the worst case happening is they decided last minute to close the concert and make it only for japanese participants.(Not that they are but just throwing out an example) then i would really be sad cuz i've been waiting for them to perform here. lol

however there is the airport meet and greet we can still plan on and maybe we can make the best out of that meeting because i don't know how much people they are expecting to greet them when they first come. and to top it off we do have a general idea of a possible fly in date now that H.I.S announced this events date, most likely the last week of may since the event is somewhere between the 30, 31st. i mean i'm sure Rina them will tweet something saying when they are actually leaving what ever day they are, so we can narrow the date down.

hopefully i made some sense. lol! 

just thought i throw out my opinion. i bummed but hopefully they can come back and do something else for their american fans. i'll just make the best out of my meeting with SCANDAL at the airport and hey maybe something can happen. never know.

I think we can all agree that it's not an ideal situation and that there are business and legal aspects that may or may not be complicated. But do you know what those are? I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea.

So does it make sense for us to assume what HIS is thinking, and then use those assumptions to scare ourselves out of asking questions that can potentially result in real answers?

They certainly aren't obligated to give us straight answers, but it's not like we're dealing with Sony and "the industry" here. This is a travel company whose job is to sort out the details for everyday people like you and me who have no idea what they're doing. Add in the fact that there are English-speaking branches and as far as accessibility goes, it doesn't get any better than that.

Quite frankly, if there was ever a waste of time and energy, it's the fact that I have to write this up to simply point out "it doesn't hurt to ask."

In case you haven't seen it already, here's an update on the current situation:
https://www.scandal-heaven.com/t10104-scandal-fan-meeting-tour-in-hawaii-join-now#647129