Hi everyone, I've been having this idea for a while now, and I'd like to put it down in the forum and get feedback from as many people as possible. I'd like to change the time allocation in HKT48's individual hand-shaking events (kobetsu akushu-kai 個別握手会). Specifically, I noticed that some of the not-well-known members get few visitors, and even their biggest fans cannot spend time in the booths due to the staff pushing them away. I also noticed that the popular members like Miyawaki Sakura are often exhausted by the amount of time spent during Akushu, so as harsh as this sounds, I'd like to take away time from each HS ticket used in a crowded lane (not too much), to lessen the load on the girls. With these two things in mind, I am constructing a new theoretical formula for calculating how much time each HS ticket should be worth. Maybe this is a long shot, but I hope to submit some suggestions to AKS management and Manager Ozaki in the future to help them change the system to serve fans better. Please note that this might fail horribly, but at least it's a fun little brainstorm project. Please also note that I am not a mathematician or statistician, so my preliminary formulas may have tons of errors. Here we go! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Step 1: Fans purchase tickets without specifying the girls they'd like to see, and then, they must pre-register who they are seeing in the day before the day of the Akushukai (or on the day?), so that management can tally the total number of people who will be in each members' lane. Step 2: Calculate the amount of time per ticket using the following formula: 5 * (1.1^#of_tickets[<40]) + 1.5^(#of_sessions_for_member * 360 ÷#of_total_fans) (Note: # of tickets submitted per trip cannot be more than 40) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Example 001: A-san wants to go see Ueno Haruka with 3 akushu tickets. Member: Ueno Haruka (Participating in one session) Total number of fans who pre-registered: 60 Number of akushu tickets: 3 Amount of time per 1 ticket: 5 * (1.1^(1)) + 1.5^(1* 360/60) = 16.89 seconds per ticket (wow!) Maximum time: 16.89 * 3 = 50.67 seconds (Lining up three times) Minimum time: 5 * (1.1^(3)) + 1.5^(360/60) = 18.04 seconds (all 3 tickets used together) The point is that Ueno Haruka's lane will most likly not be long, so this system forces fans to go line-up 2 more times in order to get the maximum time. If they can do it, they earned the time. Another thing to note is that if an Ueno Haruka kami-oshi fan simply purchase 200 tickets and try to hog her all day long, the amount of time per ticket decreases greatly. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Example 002: B-san wants to go see Motomura Aoi with 30 akushu tickets Member: Motomura Aoi (Participating in five session) Total number of fans who pre-registered: 930 Number of akushu tickets: 30 Amount of time per 1 ticket: 5 * (1.1^(1)) + 1.5^(5 * 360 / 930) = 7.435 seconds per ticket Maximum time: 7.435 * 30 = 223 seconds Minimum time: 5 * (1.1^(30)) + 1.5^(5 * 360 / 930) = 89.2 seconds (30 tickets used together) This means if B-san wants to spend as much time as possible with Motomura, he needs to break down his tickets into small portions and line-up multiple times. Due to the number of fans at the akushukai, this would push him further and further back, until the day is over. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think the formula, at this preliminary stage, does its job! It discourages fans from over-crowding the popular member's lanes, as the more fans that show up, the less time each person spends with each member. On the other hand, those fans who only purchased 1 ticket to a less-popular member will be able to get a good first impression of the girl because of the time allocated. Once a girl becomes popular, the amount of time each person at her lane will drop as well. I've noticed that after around 1.1 to the 50th power, the amount of time gets ridiculous, so I have arbitrarily set a maximum of 40 tickets. Please let me know in the thread what other factors we should consider, and anything else that can improve/correct the current formula. Remember, the goal is to give girls like Fukagawa Maiko and Yamashita Emiri more time with those few fans who choose to visit their booths! Finally, thank you so much for reading!
I'm confused, do you really want to submit your idea to AKB staff? Even if we all agree on your project, how are we suppose to give that to AKB management? I'm not sure they will even take consideration of what we say...
Okay... right now there's no concrete plan to submit it to official management LOL. Please just think of it as an exercise to try to improve the akushukai system. The recent incident will definitely cause changes to be made. This is why it's a good time to brainstorm other possible ways to change.
Okay, wait a moment. Do you know how handshake events are working as of now? Some of those suggestions seem way less practical than how they've been doing it all along. "Pre-registering" a day before the event? Event-goers order tickets months ahead. Management knows perfectly well how many people they can expect in a member's line at what time of day with how many tickets (unless people don't show up, that is), so it's not like they couldn't have improved it if there was room for that. Why in the first place do you see a need to improve that aspect of how handshake events are organized? I've never really had a problem with it and what happened the other day isn't really related, right? Eventually, your system would result in fans using less money on these events, not to mention it's discouraging people from focusing on their oshimen. The more you pay, the shorter your time gets? Practically punishing people for dropping their money on a single member by giving them less bang for their buck doesn't sound like a very good idea.
You are right haha.. I mixed zengoku and kobetsu in my head. I was thinking that ideally there would be no cap for the number of tickets you can purchase. But the way people can be dissuaded from going to the lanes of the most popular members and "share some love" with less popular members is considering that their tickets will be worth less time if they all swarm the senbatsu tables. But maybe I am too idealistic... People won't be able to predict how crowded a lane is on a particular day. And so they cannot adjust their akushu schedule to maximize the time they spend with idols. And being a hako oshi who enjoys spending time with every idol, I forgot that there are people who would only spend time with one member... This system wouldn't benefit them unless their oshi is not a popular member. I mean, the idea is simply to help fill up the non senbatsu girl's timeslots with however many fans who show up... I keep seeing acquaintances basically wasting a ticket when they go into a booth and just go blank. And some of the lesser popular girls are very warm to fans, but they don't get enough time spent on them. I'd like to see a system that can give a bit more time to one-ticket akushukai goers and first timers.
I was reading the OP with kobetsu events in mind. Well... the idea of striking a balance between Senbatsu members and lesser known ones is good. Then again I'm not sure if I'd want people who otherwise wouldn't be interested in a particular member go to do a test run with her only because she's, uh... cheap. Sure good things can come of that too, but on the other hand it can seem kind of shallow sometimes. You know... "who else is left that I can cram into my already crowded schedule of 30+ members?" Not to say I've never done it kinda like that before. I'm not really one of those the-more-the-better people, but I do go through a phase like that every once in a while. Being a first-timer's a different thing though. Obviously someone who feels that it might be his only time is going to want to make "the most" of it. Generally I'd always recommend using your money on your oshimen over dropping it on someone who you don't know what to say to. Unless of course your wallet allows for more.
Akushukai is a way to package time into arbitrary amounts and sell them. For the AKB franchise, it's more or less $10 for 8 to 10 seconds. For underground idol groups, it's $5 for 2 minutes or $10 for signed photos, etc. Maybe I'm cynical but this whole set up is shallow to begin with. Quite a few of my Japanese friends complained that they only get 10 seconds for $10. But AKS has to make its money, and my formula (albeit a very crude formula) tries to balance the money AKS can earn and the longevity of these events --- for fans to support as many girls as possible. Of course, with a lot of money, you wouldn't really care. One of my good friends is a Tani Marika kami-oshi, and he spends 30 to 60 tickets on Tani in every major akushukai, but he tells me sometimes he runs out of things to say. All in all, I feel diversity is not a bad thing.
I'm not sure I understand that there is a problem with the way things currently work, and I think your suggestion doesn't really improve anything. It just sounds like punishing fans of popular members. I'm also not sure how you can over crowd a lane in a kobetsu akushukai, I haven't been to one my self, but the way I understand it is there are a finite number of tickets for each slot to begin with. If you have a 90 minute slot, Sakura for example, is going to be handshaking that whole 90 minutes regardless of whether you've shortened each ticket's individual time, so I don't see how that would lessen her work load.
Oh no, I meant to turn it into a free market where you may buy as many tickets as you want... But spending those tickets on popular members / hot stocks will be charged a heavier commission. And the girls should be able to see less people in their 3-6 hours. Why? If the fans use up ticket all in one go, they will use up less clock! If they choose to line up multiple times, they might not be able to use all tickets! It definitely is evil in that respect. The only way it wont be as evil is if the overall demand of akb akushu drops, in which case AKS lose money regardless. I originally thought this format would also generate a lot of revenue due to the unlimited tickets factor. Now i'm not so sure... But They can always give other bonus items in the CDs as incentive to buy more!
Hmmm the way I'm seeing it though, is that it is really only beneficial to fans of unpopular members. Fans of more popular members are getting less time for their money, more popular members themselves would potentially have to be seeing a lot more people. If you just want fans to see less popular members to give them a chance, I think that already exists in the 全国握手会 and special new events they're trying like the pair akushukai.
Yeah.. I am curious about the pair akushu-kai. My first impression is that it will fail, but maybe it will open the doors to new interactions between fans and idols. I've heard some wotas suggest less large-scale akushukais and more locally-based gatherings. Do you think that is feasible? I mean, will every small event just snowball into a super large event?
