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This isn’t a scene from the running of the bulls — it’s from the running of the otaku at KiraFes 2016!

The annual Kiramune Music Festival (“KiraFes”) is centered around a live concert event showcasing popular male voice actors. The 2016 KiraFes was held on June 4 and 5 at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama City, and if photos from the event are any indication, it sure was a doozy.

A flurry of tweets posted by fans from early in the morning show just how chaotic the scene became as fans began arriving to buy the limited merchandise. The following are a few of their testimonials:

▼ “The moment they began having people exit the first train, the crowd of people waiting nearby who had bought tickets and rushed the gates were super scary. This year’s Kira Festival’s merchandise event was a huge disaster.”

▼ “The arrival of the first train of people for the goods was out of this world…”

https://twitter.com/htt_kirakira/status/738820049654317056

▼ “The people on the first train seemed to have priority for the Kira Festival merchandise. When everyone else swarmed the gates, all the staff wouldn’t stop saying, ‘Everyone, that’s against the rules! The concert will be canceled! Do you understand? It’s not something to laugh about…'”

▼ “Merchandise at Kira Festival. Groups on foot arrived before the first train did –> the staff announced that people on the first train would get priority –> some idiots bought tickets and swarmed past the ticket gate (people who didn’t have tickets were waiting near the ticket counter) –> the first train arrived (while the staff guided them, other staff erected a rope barrier) –> a cluster broke through the rope –> the staff gave up (current state of affairs)”

▼ “It was decided that the people arriving on the first train would take precedence. But the barrier was a single rope. About five or six male staff members thought they could stop people. They didn’t think that a small group of people would flood in after the first train let out. Those three let hell loose. I’ll probably never forget the looks on the staff members’ faces as they let go of the rope.”

Now, you may be wondering why people who rode the train took precedence over those who arrived by foot. As KiraFes’ official website states under the “Goods” section, the event organizers wanted to discourage people from camping out overnight at the arena and disturbing the locals as much as possible. In fact, the site even lists the earliest train to Saitama-shintoshin Station, the closest station to the arena, as arriving at 4:32 a.m. That’s incredibly early considering that doors to the concert didn’t even open until 2 p.m.!

Once access to the merchandise finally opened, it seems that the chaos died off and the event staff regained some order. Even so, the line to buy goods was still incredibly long, as evidenced by the following tweets:

▼ “People have started lining up for the Kira Festival merchandise! This fierceness should leave an impression on the locals… (；・ω・)”

▼ “The staff shouted, ‘It’s fine if you want to sit!! You’re still a long ways away from the goods. To get there, you’ll have to loop around Saitama Super Arena once.’ The popularity of the merchandise at Kira Festival is terrifying indeed.”

▼ “We’re waiting our turn for Kira Festival goods after the first vanguards. Seriously, where are we? hahaha “

▼ “The wait for Kira Festival 2016 merchandise has turned into the Saitama marathon (staff just announced, ‘We’ve created a lap around the Saitama Super Arena! You’re still only a quarter of the way there!'”

To give you an idea for how big that “lap” must have been, consider that Saitama Super Arena is one of the largest indoor arenas in the world, with a maximum capacity of 36,500 people. Yikes! At least we know for next year that KiraFes is not for the faint of heart.

Source: My Game News Flash 
Top image: Twitter/@htt_kirakira