The phenomenon has been picking up buzz online in recent months among disgruntled residents, though there may be hope on the horizon.
Scoring concert tickets has become a bit of a challenge in Japan, despite being home to the world’s second largest music market. The demand is so huge that tickets to the most popular musical acts, especially to idol ensembles or groups with pop-cultural tie-ins, are typically available by a lottery system only. I’ve both missed the mark and won in these types of lotteries, and I’m convinced that my most recent success had much to do with praying at Tokyo’s shrine dedicated to winning concert tickets or the lottery beforehand.
As difficult as it can be for anyone in the country to score tickets, residents of Hiroshima Prefecture in the southwest of Japan have an extra reason to grumble because their prefecture sees relatively fewer musical acts perform locally than might be expected. Specifically, after performing in the major urban area of Osaka, many musicians and live entertainers on nationwide tours tend to skip over Hiroshima to head directly to Fukuoka City on Kyushu. This phenomenon has gained so much attention in recent months that it has been dubbed “Hiroshima skipping” (Japanese: 広島飛ばし).
▼ Who would ever want to skip Hiroshima when it has so much to offer? Even the deer on Miyajima love their home.
Hiroshima skipping isn’t just a figment of people’s imaginations, either. The All Japan Concert & Live Entertainment Promoters Conference (ACPC), composed of 76 members, supplied data which confirms that Hiroshima hosts fewer concerts and live performances than other regional urban hubs outside of Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, such as Sapporo (hub for Hokkaido), Sendai (hub for the Tohoku region), and Fukuoka (hub for Kyushu). For instance, in 2023, fewer than half the number of performances were held in Hiroshima Prefecture (721) compared to those in Fukuoka Prefecture (1,575), as well as only 60 percent compared to those in Miyagi Prefecture (1,243), where Sendai is located.
That last statistic really puts things into perspective for me. As a former resident of Japan’s northeastern Tohoku region, I often felt like all of the big musical names would “Tohoku skip” by performing in Tokyo (or slightly north, in Saitama), only to hop directly up to Hokkaido. It was one of the reasons why I was determined to see one of my favorite Japanese bands, Do As Infinity, live when they announced a tour stop in Sendai–only one hour from where I lived–in February 2013 despite getting caught up in a blizzard and almost not making it home that night. I was just so thankful that a group I admired had visited the Tohoku region at all, and I can empathize with residents of Hiroshima who feel like they’re always missing out, despite their city being a regional urban hub for Japan’s Chugoku region and Shikoku combined.
▼ I will never, ever get rid of this t-shirt after the snowy ordeal I went through.
At least those residents of Hiroshima have been increasingly making their frustrations heard. In April, the Hiroshima-based Chugoku Shimbun (Chugoku Newspaper) implemented a survey among 109 working-age adults in Hiroshima about their home prefecture. When asked what about Hiroshima makes it “uncool,” 36.7 percent responded that “Too few of the concerts and live shows that I want to go to are offered here.” Instead, many of them have to shell out extra money to travel outside of the prefecture, often needing to spend the night elsewhere and pay for lodging as well.
▼ And as we know, many Japanese people spend a large chunk of their salary on their favorite stars.
At this point, one might wonder why there aren’t a lot of live events held within Hiroshima Prefecture despite the clear interest. After all, it’s not like there aren’t places to hold them, either, with the city home to the Hiroshima Green Arena–the larger of only two arenas in the prefecture with a seating capacity of up to 10,000 and the only venue suitable for musical arena tours in the entire Chugoku and Shikoku areas. However, in 2023, only 18 artists performed there for a total of 31 performances. So what’s going on?
“It’s called the number one most unbookable arena in the industry,” says Production Division director Takashi Oyama of the Yume Banchi music production and promotion agency’s Hiroshima office. One of the main issues is that Hiroshima Prefecture has jurisdiction over the venue, and there’s a rule that sets the number of “paid performance days” there to be within 10 percent of the days in a year. In 2023, including concerts, there were 20 revenue-generating events over the span of 36 days (just barely under the 10 percent cap). Including the time needed for set-up and removal of equipment, the total was actually 74 days (just over 20 percent).
As a result of the 10-percent rule, Yume Banchi individually is limited to booking Hiroshima Green Arena for only eight performances in a year–a maximum of 16 days–and it’s almost impossible to snag dates on Saturdays and Sundays. Oyama routinely has to turn down requests from groups hoping to perform there, including some of the hottest musical groups of the moment such as Yoasobi and Mrs. Green Apple. Last year, he even had to say no to a K-pop group.
▼ One of the reasons Oyama cites for why foreign artists want to perform in Hiroshima is because of its international message of peace (pictured: the Hiroshima Victims Memorial Cenotaph in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park).
According to a representative from the Sports Promotion Division of the Hiroshima prefectural government, the underlying reason for the 10-percent rule is that the arena was originally intended to be a home for prefectural sports (even being rebuilt for the 1994 Asian Games), and the government intends to keep it that way–even though it acknowledges the monetary boost to the local area when people visit for paid events such as concerts.
With all of the intertwined contributing factors, it seems like there’s no singular pathway forward to address the phenomenon of Hiroshima skipping. However, there does seem to be a bit of hope for music fans and artists alike. First, while not ideal since it’s still outside of the prefecture, one solution is to shuffle more performing groups to nearby Kagawa Prefecture on Shikoku when the new Anabuki Arena opens there in February 2025. With seating for up to 10,000, it could at least allow for more musical acts to perform in the local area. Second, and even more exciting, a representative from the Hiroshima Dragonflies professional Japanese basketball team announced in June their plans to build a new arena that could also be used for general entertainment purposes. Since Oyama estimates that even a single additional arena would allow his company to book three times as many performances as they’re currently able to, that is welcoming news indeed.
In the meantime, if you’ll be visiting Hiroshima soon, there are plenty of other ways to be entertained within the city. We’d recommend taking an English-language tour at this century-old brewery or getting a haircut from this dancing hairdresser for starters.
Sources: Yahoo! Japan News via Chugoku Shimbun, YouTube/Hiroshima Latest News and Documentary
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Pakutaso (1, 2, 3), SoraNews24
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