It’d be pretty surreal for anyone to join their favourite band ‘on tour’ per se, travelling with them to another country to experience a different culture and embrace new people. In 2022, one band set up a tour of Japan with the idea of making it a “fan experience.” In 2024, they did it again with nearly three times the amount of fans signing up, wanting to be a part of the experience. So, with the help of a close friend at the head of a Japanese travel agency, PacSet, Lords Of The Trident embarked on a journey across the seas to Japan with a legion of dedicated fans.
Originating with their Patreon supporters, Lords Of The Trident made sure to include a travel package for airfare, admission to day events, full-time interpreters, hotels, some meals, train tickets, and tickets to the shows. It aimed to be more of an explorative holiday in which fans got to both enjoy another culture and hang out with one of their favourite bands (for about $4,000). Around 25 people signed up and travelled to Japan with Lords Of The Trident in 2022, with that sign-up number increasing to 85 and 40 being selected through a lottery system in 2024, travelling to Japan with Lords Of The Trident and Seven Spires this past December.
Despite cutting down the numbers, the group in total had 54 people (band, crew, interpreters, and significant others). Vocalist Ty Christian jokes, “I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to cram 54 Americans into a bullet train in 60 seconds before the doors close, but it was an INSANE feat.” And the bands joined in on the fun every single day.
With 2024 bringing much bigger crowds to their Japanese shows, Lords Of The Trident reaped the rewards with offers for daytime activities for the large party that typically would never happen. With the increased size group, Lords Of The Trident, Seven Spires, crew, and fans rented out entire restaurants for their welcome and mid-tour dinners, charter boats for sighting islands off the Sendai region, and touring a closed-to-the-public sake brewery with the CEO explaining the entire process throughout the tour. The band didn’t just make an experience, they made the fans feel like they were apart of the bands themselves, living a fun kind of luxury that felt dreamlike.
Christian explains further that at the end of the extravagant (and probably exhausting) travels, that the group would relax with a “two-day excursion to a high-end hot springs resort for relaxing, soaking, massage, sauna, group dinners, all-you-can-drink parties.”
Treating fans more like long-time friends reuniting on a trip, it’s not hard to see that why a culture would take an interest in such a friendly and kind approach. Lords Of The Trident success is marked partially by their signing to a Japanese distributor, yes, but by the fact that the fans and the band want to do such a trip again, and do it soon. It seems like it’s only a matter of time now before Lords Of The Trident bring their fans to Japan… again.
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