A few months ago I went to Miku Expo at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam. As a vocaloid fan I was very exited to experience my first vocaloid concert. Here are some of my experiences, and over all opinion about the concert.
Thoughts before the concert
It was mid September last year when the locations and tour dates of Miku Expo got revealed. And while I normally wouldn't really pay much mind to it, soon my insta-story feed was flooded with posts about the event. Miku Expo was coming to Amsterdam for the first time!!
Right when the ticket sales started I was eager to get one, yet when I saw the prices I got a bit doubtful. The ticket price started around €55,- and since this would be my second time going to any concert I didn't know if it would be worth the price. I decided to wait a while to make up my mind first.
Well.... let's say I suddenly made up my mind real quick. The tickets got a black friday sale and they were all 50% off so me and my friend both decided to go after all.
The concert
The venue itself was easily accessible by public transport and it's only a short walk from the nearby Bijlmer Arena station. And although me and my friends arrived later than initially planned the line still wasn't as long as I expected. The doors would open in less than an hour and I didn't really mind the wait. We were already getting ourselves hyped up for the concert while in line. As expected there were also quite a few people in cosplay.
At 19.00 the doors finally opened and we were immediately greeted with the merch booth. Not even just one, but a total of three booths who sold the official Miku Expo merch. In the middle of the area was a booth were you could try the new project diva game. Within a matter of minutes people had already formed long lines to spend all of their live savings on their favourite vocaloids. (And so did I)
my cosplay for the concert!! GimmexGimme Rin
Only an hour the later the concert started. Time seemed to go by so quick as all the songs played. There were quite a few popular songs in the songlist, classics such as: 'world is mine', 'butterfly on your right shoulder' and 'tell your world' to name a few. I really liked that they put in the more popular songs, because the audience showed more participation when they knew the song. I gotta admit I loved seeing people getting hyped up and aggressively swinging their lightstick (fyi I was one of those people).
My opinion
Right after the concert it seemed pretty surreal that it just happened. After being a vocaloid fan for more than four years and watching concerts online it felt so weird that I just experienced one myself.
What could have been better?
Sadly there were also a few things about the concert that weren't as great. The first thing was the bag rules: you weren't allowed to bring any bag bigger than A4 size with 10 cm width. Although this was pretty annoying, especially for those of us who had to travel from the other side of the country, we were informed way ahead of the concert that this would be the case. Still it would be nicer if we were allowed to bring bigger bags, there already was a bag check anyway.
My other critique would be the schedule: the doors opened only an hour before the concert. I guess this normally wouldn't be a problem. But we're talking about Vocaloid fans here and all of them wanted to get their hands on some merch. It didn't take long for the merch booths to become crowded. Me and my friends were in line for almost the full hour and still didn't manage to get anything before the concert. Quite a few people even missed the first part of the concert because they were still waiting in line. My hope for next time would be that they open the doors earlier before the concert.
(excuse me if I got a bit nitpicky here)
Miku expo Amsterdam artwork by: Lien art
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Conclusion
These cons that I mentioned really didn't matter a lot looking back at my over al experience of the concert. I already ordered my lightstick online before the concert because I knew I really wanted one. Which I could recommend to anyone who knows they're going to want to get some merch.
Quick something about the lightstick: Althought I was a bit sceptical beforehand if the lightstick would be worth it I still got one. They are definitely not cheap, here they retailed for €35 and I am honestly happy I got one. I think it's totally worth it if you want the authentic idol concert experience of aggressively waving a plastic glowstick in harmony with a big crowd full of weebs.
I can definitely say the concert was worth it! If you're a fan of vocaloid I can totally recommend going at least once. But you gotta know what to expect! Miku Expo is on a way smaller scale than for example the Nico Nico Cho parties. So there probably won't be a lot of interactions between the vocaloid except for a few duet or group songs.
Which didn't actually matter to me that much. I had a great time with friends + a bunch of people who share the same interest and really enjoyed the concert.
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