Tickets and merchandise are being resold… Why the eerie “Missing Exhibition” has become a very popular date spot

Missing Exhibition” Attracts an Unprecedented Number of Visitors
Special interview with the organizer who aimed to “transcend the barriers of horror fans

This summer, the most popular date spot among young men and women was neither a summer festival nor a fireworks display, but an eerie exhibition. ……

The name of the exhibition is “The Missing Exhibition. This exhibition, which focused on “missing” people, things, whereabouts, memories, and all other kinds of things, attracted a lot of attention through social networking services, and tickets sold out in no time. It quickly sold out, attracting an unprecedented 65,000 visitors.

How did Mr. Nashi, a horror writer, and Mr. Tokio Omori of TV Tokyo, the organizers of the exhibition, feel about this enthusiasm?

–Did you expect the response to be this strong at the beginning?

Omori: “We are happy that the response has far exceeded the number of visitors we originally expected. However, as a result of the rush of visitors to the exhibition, we were forced to wait our turn to see any of the exhibits, and we regret that some people may have felt dissatisfied. ……”

Pear: “I heard that there was sometimes a 90-minute wait for exhibits where visitors had to put on headphones to listen to the sound. …… It was also our mistake that we could not prepare a venue with sufficient capacity, but we realized once again the difficulty of an event that the excitement of an exhibition is inversely proportional to the value of the experience.

–What do you think was the reason why so many people paid so much attention to the exhibition?

Nashi: “The first goal I set with Mr. Omori was to ‘break through the wall of horror fans. We thought that if we could reach horror fans throughout Japan, we would be able to achieve our goal, but if we wanted to attract even more people, we had to get people other than horror fans interested as well. That’s when we turned to TikTok.

Omori: “The main battleground for horror content and horror fans is X (formerly Twitter), so just being excited about X is not enough to ‘go beyond the wall. So how do we reach the general public on TikTok?

To answer this question, we decided to include elements that would attract people just by looking at them at a glance, so to speak. For example, a huge pile of dirt, or a large pile of old mobile phones.

There were many visitors who took selfies with these “attractive” exhibits and uploaded them to social networking sites, and it was very interesting to see them go viral on social networking sites,” he said.

It would be great if this exhibition was a catalyst for people to step into this world.

–I understand that you allowed people to take pictures of the exhibition in order to spread the word on social networking sites. But conversely, weren’t you worried about spoiling the exhibition?

Omori: “This exhibition is not a riddle, so I don’t think spoilers are relevant. In creating this exhibition, I was referring to the ‘ Rules? Exhibition’.

It was an exhibition that attracted a flood of young people who were not interested in art because of the buzz on TikTok, and the exhibits were so attractive that it was interesting no matter where you took pictures. I was hoping that something similar would happen with the “Missing” exhibition.

–Omori: “That’s what we were aiming for.

Omori: “That was our goal of ‘going beyond the wall. We wanted to go beyond the wall of horror lovers, fake documentary fans, Nashi-san’s fans, etc., and hope that it would be an encounter between horror and other people.

Just as there are people who have loved horror ever since they saw scary images on TV when they were children, it would be wonderful if this exhibition could be a catalyst for people to step into the world of “here”.

Nashi: “We made some new discoveries by going ‘over the wall’. For example, there is an exhibit that plays videos on an old TV set. We created this exhibit with the assumption that it would be viewed quietly by a single person, but couples and visitors with children gathered around and enjoyed watching the videos while chatting and laughing. It was a great learning experience for me to realize that this kind of enjoyment is possible.

–I think it is a very good cycle that your works reach people other than horror fans, resulting in discoveries for the two of you and further broadening the base of horror. Lastly, please tell us about what you two would like to create next.

Nashi: “I think this exhibition was able to reach out to people who like horror and people who do not. Without narrowing the genre ourselves in this way, I would like to make things that aim at the core group of horror lovers but also bring in another group of people.

Ideally, I would like to increase the number of children who are horror fans by creating picture books and children’s books. I believe that we can still play with horror, so I will do my best to bring horror closer to more people.

Omori: “I am bothered by the fact that J-horror is not very popular in the world. I’m planning to make fake documentaries and movies about the concept of the kind of scares that are popular in Japan today, which are not easy to understand but are somehow creepy and erode people’s lives, and I hope that I can cross borders.

*”Missing Exhibition” will be held until 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 1. Tickets are currently sold out. Please note that this exhibition is a fiction.