A 25-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of illegally touting tickets to concerts by Japanese boyband Arashi.

According to police in the city of Sapporo, quoted by Fuji TV, Izumi Nakayama is alleged to have resold online 300 tickets over a period of 18 months to the tune of approximately ¥10 million (US$98,450).

Popular ‘idol’ group Arashi (pictured) only sell tickets to members of their fan club, and announced in April that facial-recognition technology would be used to prevent those who had purchased secondary-market tickets attending their Japonism Show arena tour.

“There’s no problem if you buy a ticket to use yourself, end up unable to do so due to circumstances and then resell it”

The group have also lent their support to the #ResaleNO anti-ticket touting campaign, which is backed by leading industry groups and last month took out full-page ads in a number of Japanese newspapers.

According to RocketNews24, Nakayama is accused of violating the Secondhand Articles Dealer Act, as she lacked the permit needed to resell the tickets. Authorities also apparently took exception to her buying up the tickets with the sole intent of resale: reports the website: “According to the website of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police,” reports RocketNews24, “there’s no problem if you buy a ticket to use yourself, end up unable to do so due to circumstances and then resell it. However, that clearly wasn’t the case with Nakayama, who has admitted to the authorities that she intended from the very beginning to resell the tickets.”

According to the International Ticketing Yearbook 2016, there are a number of well-known secondary ticketing sites in Japan, with the most established including TicketStreet, Ticket Camp and Ticket Ryutsu Center. Unlike Nakayama, large-scale resellers on those sites presumably have the proper permits.

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Millennial music industry conference FastForward, which launched earlier this year, will return to Amsterdam for its second edition next February.

Presented by Media Insight Consulting and sponsored by 7digital, the conference – aimed at under-35s working in the music industry – features keynote speeches, panel discussions and quick-fire ‘FastFifteen’ sessions exploring trends in music and technology and will once again be held at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, on 23 and 24 February 2017.

Topics to be covered include the future of radio, the future of making music, the evolution of the ticketing market, lessons from the gaming sector, developments in music marketing and changes in music and technology.

The conference has so far announced 19 participants – among them IQ news editor Jon Chapple, Ticketmaster’s director of business development, Sarah Slater, StubHub senior product manager Sam Flamand-Gloyne, Rocket Music artist manager Jazz Sherman and Media Insight CEO and FastFoward founder Chris Carey – with a further 20 to be confirmed before the event.

“I’m excited to … deliver another event where innovative voices come together to talk about the big opportunities for the music industry in the coming months and years”

Carey says: “I was very proud of the debut event. We brought people together from across the globe for a dynamic conversation about the future of the music industry.

“By keeping the event small we have been able to cultivate an environment where everyone felt they could talk to everyone, with a number of these conversations leading to closer connections between different industry sectors and deals being done.

“I’m excited to build on this foundation to deliver another event where innovative voices come together to talk about the big opportunities for the music industry in the coming months and years.”

Tickets are, as with this year, limited to 150, to “allow for deeper networking and discussion”, with delegate passes available from www.fastforward.tickets.

Read IQ’s coverage of the FastForward 2016 ‘The Future of Live Music’ panel here.

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