Juice=Juice’s 2026 Fan Club Event Sparks Debate Over Cramped Venue

Background and Key Points

Juice=Juice’s Christmas fan-club event, “Meri Kuri × Juice × Box,” is set for December 9, 2026, at Ichikawa City Culture Hall Main Hall, a 1,758-seat venue in Chiba Prefecture (near Motoyawata Station). FC (fan club) events are lower-cost, members-only shows distinct from paid ticketed tours, and Hello! Project groups typically run one around Christmas each year alongside a separate birthday event for each member. The venue itself has history in the fandom — Tsubaki Factory, another H!P group, previously used it for a live-band show. Capacity matters because H!P FC events routinely oversell their lottery: with a roughly 1,700-seat cap split across two sessions, and citing individual members who can reportedly sell out 1,200-capacity solo birthday events, posters worried plenty of paying FC members will simply lose the lottery draw.

The thread’s actual disagreement wasn’t about whether the venue was small — nearly everyone agreed on that — but about what a better alternative would have looked like. Some proposed nearby major venues (Hachioji, Pacifico Yokohama, Omiya), others wanted something as large as 5,000 capacity, and one poster half-joked about Budodan given the group’s current momentum. There was no consensus, just competing wishlists.

What outside readers likely miss: several posts note this year’s Christmas-event announcements across H!P groups are unusually early (normally not until closer to the date), and that this is tied to merchandise pre-sales timing rather than venue strategy — pre-sale windows for goods open alongside the Christmas event announcement, so groups are rushing to announce before birthday events, not because of stage logistics. That timing pressure, not simple venue availability, is likely the real reason capacity planning looks rushed.