Once the AKB48 boom is gone the Theater Concerts will also Disappear

  July 14, 2012

related post: http://www.akb48wup.com/2012/06/kenkyuseis-salary-for-one-stage-is.html  


It’s because of the boom that they were able to have stages, right?


But they had stages prior to the AKB48 boom.


But they said that once the boom is over, they would go back to doing theater stages.


Team 4 and KKS answering media questions overseas:


Anyways, they can’t maintain the theater without making a profit (or being in the black)
Like with the cost of rent, energy, labor, advertising, costumes, etc.
These expenses are essential, so I feel that it is tough for them.


Well, even if they raised the price of the tickets to 6000 yen they would still fill all the seats.
But after their boom is over, it would…


If the price is at 6000 yen, they wouldn’t be able to fill the theater? That would never happen unless their popularity drops to the level of summer 2006.


Just from that it means that the current AKB is incredible, yeah?
Well, where is the profit line for the theater? I don’t know whether their current stages are making a profit, so I have absolutely no idea.


HKT’s ticket price is 1000 yen.
They are in deficit.


I hope the theater stages still exist 10 years later.

Even if they increase the admission fee, the true fans will stay, which is why they’ll definitely be fine.
It will be the true contest for the people, who are now called the “super senbatsu” and “media senbatsu”, graduating with missing important things here and there.

↑That’s the do or die situation. At that time their CDs won’t have any presence and won’t sell, but the theater stages will absolutely remain.


Roughly estimating, with keeping big margin, it’s impossible to maintain this as business if they sell ticket for less than 10,000yen, assuming the staff is restructured into the lowest necessary number and the number of members is also reduced to 60.

The number of members doesn’t really matter.
Because in each theater 16 members appear, and they only pay fixed amounts to the members that appeared.


The concerts were there prior to the boom.
With just theater stages, this current popular group can’t go any further down, in terms of support.
When the boom goes away, the stages won’t disappear.
When the boom goes away, I think a restructuring would occur.


I’ll always feel like commuting to the theater forever. It’s just…


Even if the boom goes away, AKB will continue.
It will seem to be exhausted 10, 20 years beyond this point.
It would just be about them returning to their original concept.


↑ As I thought, they have to turn it into a stable thing like the Johnnys, right?


Even if they continued on, one of the factors is the rental fee for that place, which is expensive
I think they should build a new theater at a cheaper place.
Asakusabashi is close to Akihabara and also, it will be AKB, so I think it’s perfect.


↑ A genius casually reveals himself.


I also want them to make a new theater.
More than a crowded theater with obstructive pillars,
somewhat leaving Akihabara is better, so I want them to build a large theater.


If their only revenue source is the theater, it won’t be so appealing business-wise as they’ll have a very low profit margin.
Though, all through the ages, Ota for underground idols exist so as long as members are attractive enough for them, they will still survive.
But if the management lost their motivation, then it’ll be all over.
Whether or not the theater performance survive have no direct relation to boom.

After all, “Theater” is a tool to keep their concept “idol who you can meet” true, I think.
Live performance at the theater itself isn’t a viable business.
The problem is the aggregated market of CDs has been on decline over these years, music-streaming market as well.
So in the end, in a long run, they have no revenue source other than big-scale live concert events,
but in AKB’s case, because of its sheer number of members, it costs too much.
As along as they can make arena seats in big dome stadiums, they can be in the black (make profits) but once they lost their popularity, they soon be deep in debt.
Naturally they will be unable to pay the rent for Donkihote (AKB48 theater)


↑ Wait, I heard holding live concerts in dome stadiums usually end up in red (deficit).
And they scoop money by selling goods only available at concert venues (or concert events?).


One rock singer once firmly appealed that he can’t make a living without revenue from selling goods at concerts.


And it was rumored that one big shot musician is making a living, selling towels lol


So it has long been said that the AKB48 boom will end,
But if they keep selling this much it won’t end so easily.
Even though we’re eager to go to the theater, we keep losing the lottery in reality.
My hope is that their popularity will be reduced to the point where I can buy their concerts tickets just normally.


For the time being, they’d better increase the price for the stage performance that include even one Senbatsu members to 4,000yen, regardless of the number of KKS.
An extreme case for example, if it’s RESET Stage, even though all members are 13gen except Yokoyama, one ticket costs 4,000.


AkiP said…. I don’t remember, probably in ANN?
That 10 years later, even if the group loses its popularity, AKB may still continue Stage performances in AKB48 theater in front of a small number of audience.


That’s it.
People may think, “Wait, wasn’t this the AKB that people were crazy about in the past!?!?”
and then that would ignite the rise of AKB48 again, he said something like this.


It seems like Yasusu has the right of personnel transfer (e.g. what he did for Sashiko) or making decision in the creation,
But because he doesn’t have responsibility to collect money, his opinion is sometimes optimistic, isn’t it?
AKB will face the real difficulty with surviving when the group’s popularity started declining, and it starts becoming hard to maintain the AKB48 theater.
If in such a situation, they raise the ticket price and maintain the theater performance, I will pay my respects to them.


Anyway, there’s a possibility that they will increase the price to 4,800 at the maximum.


If once the AKB boom is over, AKB will continue to exist as training institute for professional entertainers.


Yasusu’s ability to forget something inconvenient for him ever exist, and the speed that Yoshimoto agency escape from business once they realized it’s not profitable are incredible, you know.

So in short, the scenario goes like this: Once Yoshimoto has left the business, Yasusu will also run away with them


After that, AKB will be managed by members….


↑ Holy cow!! That’s so cool!


There’s no way they can pay the members’ salary with 3000 yen x 250 seats.


3000 yen x 250 seats = 750,000 yen
If we assume a member gets 20,000 yen for 1 concert
20,000×16=320,000 yen
750,000 yen – 320,000 yen = 430,000 yen

Assuming there are 8 concerts in a month
A member would get 160,000 yen a month
Excluding the member’s guarantee
430,000 yen x 8 concerts = 3,440,000 yen


If those who want to be singers or singer/songwriters take command of voice training and composition, the dancers in the group take charge of choreography, members who want to be models or fashion designers take charge of clothes, and the reception desk, sound, lights and cleaning of the theatre are handled by the kenkyuusei…
They could pull it off if they do it like this, right?


On the contrary, if they can keep Stage performance, then they can manage to keep being active as AKB.
After all, back when they were disregarded by light fans, they managed to survive through Stage performances.
Regardless of times, there are Ota who are eager to support underground idols, and there’re no more loyal fans/customers than Ota.


I wrote that Yasusu are talking irresponsibly things because he is not responsible of raising of money.
But if this is run by all his capitals, then he would have never have made decisions such as leaving previous record labels (Defstar) and being freelance (AKS label) until they made a contract with King Records, or leaving individual members to each talent agencies that are third parties from the perspective of AKS.
Though there is a bad example like SDN, 48G has become enormously huge and even though Akimoto would abandon the group, the system of 48G would remain the same and they would continue Stage performance at AKB48 theater.


When they significantly decreased their popularity, it would be difficult to always fill the theater. And it will be impossible to pay the rent, so the theater will be closed.

They need to go back to February of 2006 to see vacants seats in their theater performance.
How many years will it take before they will lose the popularity that much?


If AKB do theater performance but all other activities on mainstream media, probably Ota may remain loyal to them, but members that are essential part of performance will disappear, I think….


↑ We’re talking on the basis that current famous members have all left the group, of course.
If they would pay befitting performance fee to those famous faces, then it would be impossible to make profit with only 250 audience.
If you are talking about the stage when they lost everything but the theater, their popularity previously is at a similar level to the current KKS, I’m quite certain.


5,000yen fee per performance is the astounding number for ordinary underground idols, actually it’s like a heavenly number for them.
Usually, they sell tickets to their family members or acquaintances, but still they have to buy tickets of their own live concerts at their own expenses….
So they’d better think that the “performance fee” is a kind of joke.


Long story short, I don’t think it’s going anywhere.


Idols are in a bad spot.
Frankly, the next 6 months will be do or die. It depends on when the Kami-6 that remain after Maeda graduates will follow.
I guess the next generation center will be a really important position.


I think the quality of their music are after all excellent. Though it varies significantly song to song.
Music is the start of everything in the first place. If they don’t fail music-wise, they’ll succeed in whatever activity they will do in the theater.
Stage songs can’t be heard unless you go to the theater, that’s the point.
If they release CDs of Stage songs, they’ll be in pinch.


What are you talking about? Stage songs are already commoditized as CDs??


3000 yen is too cheap


↑ I agree with you, it’s okay if it’s for HKT, but AKB and SKE should be 4000 yen.
If the price was only 3000 yen, I don’t know if they’ll be able to increase the profits. 

source, translated by Edo-san, Wingom and Tommy