JKT48 Handshake Festival – Another Observation

You probably have read what Angga wrote about JKT48 Handshake Festival event in this post. Please allow me to add another observations for the event. Hopefully JOT can further improve them at the next handshake festival event.

Queuing Mechanism

On the previous handshake event, ticket checking was done in the front. For each session, fans queue only for one time. Then fans queue on each member’s booth. The line for this booth is quite empty, while the ticket checking queue was quite long. The availability of only 3 barcode scanners make the ticket checking queue long.

On this handshake festival event, ticket checking was done directly on each member’s booth. The idea is to spread the fans to several lines. This is good for fans who only have to handshake 1 member per session. However, for fans who have multiple members per session, they have to queue up several times. This queuing process is a waste of time.

Previously, you could do handshake to many members in each session. Now, you can only handshake with 1-2 members. Time is wasted because of multiple queuing.

A good solution is to go back to the previous handshake’s mechanism, but use more barcode scanners (10-12 lines probably?) to speed up the process.

Internet Availability

When you were in an offline event with thousands of people attending, 3G connections will not be reliable. If you use an internet environment to scan the barcode, you might want to prepare to bring your own internet connection bandwidth. Separate connections that are not used by the attendance.

This is probably the reason why there are no barcode scanning again on the afternoon. Meaning that there are probably attendants that use fake handshake tickets, giving longer queuing time than expected.

Privacy in Member’s Booth

For each ticket you have 10 seconds of private time with the member (even though there are reports that many have lost their tickets because of the security is cutting the time short). Fans have to keep their manners inside.

Having a security inside the booth can be annoying. What annoy more is having other fans peeking from outside the booth. A friend of mine even report that a guy actually record my friend’s conversation with the member. The guy shoved his camera inside the booth. The security’s not doing anything about this.

There are some cases that fans could have two shot photo with the member inside the booth. When that fan is doing the handshake, his friend actually shoved his camera inside the booth to shoot them together. It seems that the security didn’t see this as a concern of privacy violation (for the member).

Hopefully on the next handshake event, the member’s booth could be cleared from such nuisance. Only selected people that has the handshake ticket for that session can only enter the area.

Entrance Fee

I don’t know the exact numbers but I’m sure there are many free riders on the last handshake festival. They didn’t buy any handshake ticket, but still come to the event to enjoy the member’s performance on stage.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to let free riders come to the event. Their numbers could not be expected. Even big events such as Indocomtech in JCC, or Hai Festival, or Hellofest, require attendants to buy a ticket. The ticket would help count the exact number of audiences, and filter all the free riders. This will also help to control the crowd numbers in the area.

Hopefully in the next handshake event only people with handshake tickets can come to event area. Fans who want to come have to buy at least 1 handshake ticket. Consider this 1 handshake ticket as a replacement for entrance fee.

Zone Separation of Stage and Member’s Booth

Placing the main stage at the center, surrounded with members’ booth lead to a disaster. The recent zoning made the member’s booth’s queuing lines blurry. The nearest booths to the main stage become the victim. Their queuing lines were mixed with people who are watching the stage’s performance. Inside the booth, the stage’s sound disturbed the conversation between fan and member.

Placing member’s booth quite far from the main stage and sponsored booths hopefully could help separate attendants’ traffic in the event.

If there are any critics or suggestions about the recent handshake festival, please give your comments below. Let’s hope for the better handshake event in the upcoming months.