I heard the word “Satsuei Kai” (撮影会(さつえいかい)) among the otaku community and didn’t really know what it was apart from the literal translation roughly meaning “group photo session”. After further investigation, I find out that one can go and participate in an event where one can take as many photos as one desires of an idol without the 60 second time limit.
As you already know, it’s my duty to serve my loyal readers and went along to find out more about this otaku category^^;
Berry Waffle is an organizer of idol photo sessions and I decided to go to check them out – in armor.
I’m still not too sure how everything works but it seems that the organizer rents a photo studio (in this case it was Roppongi Digital Photo Studio) and makes their money from getting punters to pay to take photos – sounds like a good business model to me.
The day is divided up into four segments – each segment divided into three photo sessions. I attended the first segment of the day. The first photo session was outdoors in a nearby park. The second and third session was in the studio.
The cost depends on how popular the idol is. Costs could go up to more than 10,000 yen per segment. I paid 5,000 yen for the first segment and then had to shoot off to another event. One segment lasts about 1.5 hours - but then again this would depend on which organizer you choose to go with.
The type of photo session depends on the idol but the one I attended had civilian clothing in the park and bikini for the studio shoot. If you were worried about the idol getting cold in the studio running around in a bikini – then don’t because the lighting was hot enough. As for the men – I think they got hot just by being in front of the idols...
