TeamAyu

TeamAyu is Ayumi Hamasaki's official fan club. It launched in 1999 as Ayumi Hamasaki Online Fan Club, then re-launched as TeamAyu in June 2000.

This page is incomplete and will be updated with more detailed information in the future.

History

Ayumi Hamasaki Online Fan Club

The fan club began accepting members in July 1999, and officially opened for access in September. A subscription to the avex alert! service was a prerequisite for fan club access.

The fee was 6,000 yen, to be made via money transfer at the post office; after making the transfer you were instructed to e-mail a fan club e-mail address with your information to finalize your membership; once you received your confirmation e-mail, which could take up to two weeks, you could log in to the ayu fan club with your avex alert! login information.

Benefits as of September 1999

Issuance of a premium membership card
Participation in Ayu BBS/Chat system
Ayu original photo gallery
Ayu Diary
Downloading screensavers, etc. (in the "ACCESSORIES" section)
Plus the promise of more services in the future, at the time "still under planning and production".

The Ayu BBS/Chat did include Ayu making posts on the BBS (as a "Message from Ayu" class of post), which were like blog entries.

According to TA Magazine issue 1, the first AYU'S DIARY video was posted on October 9th, and was called "First Diary".

The website also included a "REPORTS" section, not listed as a feature, as of the release of LOVEppears. This section was any combination of photos, text, and video. The first fan-club exclusive report was "Ayu's New York Photo Diary," written in the autumn 1999.

TeamAyu Relaunch

In 2000, around the release of vogue, the fan club was rebranded as "ayumi hamasaki Online Fan Club 'TeamAyu'". For a limited period of time, the new membership card was packed in a small thick cardboard folio with a business card sized CD-rom that included a greeting from Ayu and PC wallpapers of 1999 behind-the-scenes photos.

At one point the Ayu BBS was closed after a time of Ayu interacting with fans using the service, but some fans being less polite and abusing the service. It was replaced by a members-only BBS where members could chat with each other.

Benefits as of October 2000

Issuance of premium membership card
Participation in MEMBERS BBS
Report delivered in video format
PHOTO GALLERY
Screen saver & wallpaper download
Invitation to watch TV programs, etc.
Concert ticket priority reservation

Ayu's Diary and a "Today's Photo" feature were also included, but were not called out specifically on the Information page.

Magazine Era (2001-2005)

In early 2001, around the release of A BEST, TeamAyu finally got its own TeamAyu.com website, rather than the club being a subsection of Ayu's official site. You could now join the club via a web form instead of sending an e-mail (although payment was still made separately from the web form), and avex's alert! system no longer existed and was therefore not required anymore. Membership was also now separated out into two tiers, "A course" for 6,000 yen and "B course" for 4,000 yen. The higher-cost "A course" was the only part that allowed for access to the members-only TeamAyu website. Both tiers gave members access to the official TeamAyu magazine, published every few months, and bonus merchandise.

Some of the behind-the-scenes photo galleries from the original Online Fan Club site were migrated over to Ayu's public official website as additional "Special Issue" reports. Those included the WHATEVER video shoots, the ayu-mi-x CM shoot, the LOVE~Destiny~ music video shot, the TO BE jacket photo and video shoots, the Boys & Girls video shoot, the A single jacket photo shoot, and the A Film for XX cover & insert photo shoot.

Benefits as of April 2001 (A-Course)

Original goods as a bonus for joining
Issuance of membership card
Published newsletter
Advance reservation of concert tickets
Info on public recording of TV events, etc.
Mail order sales of original merchandise
Participation in MEMBERS BBS
Report delivered via video footage
PHOTO GALLERY
Download screensavers & wallpapers

Ayu's Diary and "Today's Photo" were also included as part of the A-Course web site but were not called out specifically on the Information page.

Benefits as of April 2001 (B-Course)

Original goods as a bonus for joining
Issuance of membership card
Published newsletter
Advance reservation of concert tickets
Info on public recording of TV events, etc.
Mail order sales of original merchandise

The MEMBERS BBS on the A-Course website was closed in Spring 2003.

Avex-FC Era (2006-2013)

The TeamAyu website was revamped in early 2006, migrating to avex's newly-created internal fanclub organization, and most of the members-only website contents from before that relaunch were not retained, and have been lost.

International Launch (2014)

At Ayu's 2014 a-nation appearance in Singapore, it was announced that TeamAyu would relaunch with an entirely new website. This site migrated much of the old site's content into an Archive section. While it was a lower cost subscription (down to 3700 yen per year), and did officially allow access from international fans now, TA members no longer received the magazine or physical merchandise, or a physical membership card, replacing the latter with a QR code to be scanned at concert venues for any exclusive benefits.

TeamAyu App Era (2023-)

Now that avex no longer used Global-FC.com for fan club services and instead migrated their fan clubs to a new company, the TeamAyu website services closed as of June 2023 to move all users to an app-based service instead. The price of membership tripled to about 10,000 yen per year, phone & PC wallpapers were eliminated as a benefit, and the app does not allow for any auto-translation service. While there are exclusive behind-the-scenes videos, there is no way to watch them on a screen any larger than your phone. In 2024 a scratch card gacha feature was introduced, where for a small microtransaction fee members could try their luck at winning prizes.