Auditions, live concerts, and festivals are the main way the idols in The Idolm@ster 2 gain more fans, fame, and money. All three control the same way gameplay wise. The differences are the requirements for entry, the requirements to win, and what you will receive for winning.
Basic Gameplay[]
Like previously stated, auditions, live concerts, and festivals are the same gameplay wise.
Appeals[]
The picture above is an example of what auditions, live concerts, and festivals look like gameplay wise. There are 3 circles toward the bottom of the screen that correspond to the game's 3 stats; dance, visual, and vocals. These circles represent something called an appeal. You are basically trying to tell the judge to pay attention to your idol unit. However, you have to choose an aspect of your idols that you want them to pay attention to. Do you want the judge to pay attention to how well your idols dance? How cute they look? How good they sound singing? It's up to you!
The way you choose is by hitting the button corresponding to the stat that you want the judge to pay attention to. This is the X button for dance, Y button for visual, and B button for vocals. However, the judge doesn't want you to appeal just any old time. You should hit the button with the beat of the song. A circle will come outward from the middle of each of the 3 circles representing the stats, and it will move toward the outer ring of the circle representing the stat. You should try to hit the button corresponding to the stat you want to appeal as close to the time that the inner circle aligns with the outer circle as possible. If you hit it on time, you should see PERFECT and a number show up below that. That number represents the score you earned for that appeal. If you press the button when the inner circle is farther away from the outer circle, you might get a GOOD, which will get you fewer points than a PERFECT, or a BAD, which will actually subtract points from your score.
Each of the outer circles also have numbers on the bottom right with an x and a number. This number represents your multiplier. The more that you appeal to one particular stat, the more the judge will get bored of seeing it, so your multiplier will go down. However, appealing also raises the multiplier of a different stat from the one you appealed to at the same time. In other words...
- Appeal to dance stat - Lowers dance multiplier, raises visual multiplier
- Appeal to visual stat - Lowers visual multiplier, raises vocal multiplier
- Appeal to vocal stat - Lowers vocal multiplier, raises dance multiplier
Essentially, the way the game calculates your score is by taking how much your unit has in the particular stat that you are appealing, taking into account if you got a PERFECT, GOOD, or BAD, and multiplying it by the multiplier on the bottom right. To see your total score at any point, just look at the number at the very upper left of the screen, next to where it says Score.
An additional thing to keep in mind is that The Idolm@ster 2 gives you bonus points for how many PERFECT hits you got in a row. This is called a combo. The higher the combo, the more bonus points you will receive. When you get a GOOD or a BAD on an appeal, it instantly breaks your combo and you will no longer receive a combo bonus until you get a combo started up again.
To get the maximum score from appeals, you want to try to get as many PERFECT hits as possible, as well as managing what stat you are going to appeal to, keeping degrading multipliers into account.
Memory Appeals[]
On the upper left of the screen, you should see something that says APPEAL and one of the names of the girls in your unit, followed by a pink heart that says Lv and a number. You can have anywhere from Lv1 and 1 heart showing on the screen, up to Lv5 and 5 pink hearts. These are used for an extra special type of appeal called a memory appeal. Memory appeals are when the girls are supposed to be thinking about the times they spent together with you as the producer and together as a group. The memory appeals are a good way to raise up the multiplier for all 3 of your stats at once to 1.10, as well as to give you some extra points.
Memory appeals work very similarly to regular appeals in that you want to wait until the circles representing your three stats have the inner circle meeting with the outer circle's rim or as close as possible. But instead of hitting one of the buttons for the regular appeals, you hit the A button instead. The appeal circles will temporarily go away and the girl in your unit that is listed next to the word APPEAL will be zoomed in on the screen for a moment as she does a quick special action.
To change which girl shows up during the memory appeal, just hit the LB button at any time before you do the memory appeal. You can scroll through the girls' names by hitting the LB button multiple times.
You can only use a memory appeal for the number of memory levels/hearts you have. You can build up your memory level higher over time from some story scenes as well as by doing a Promotion.
Burst Appeals[]
You've probably been wondering what that bar on the upper left that says Voltage is for. This bar is for something called burst appeals. Burst appeals are even more special than memory appeals. You can use it whenever the voltage bar is completely filled. The game will prompt you when the voltage bar is full, telling you that you can hit the RB button to burst if you want to.
When you hit the RB button, the girl whose name is shown next to where it says appeal on the upper left will appear on the screen by herself with a fancy background and doing new poses. During this time, circles that look just like the normal appeal circles will appear on the screen one at a time. You can't choose which stat to appeal to during this time, and you should try to hit all of the circles in time (similar to normal appeals) as they appear. If you hit nothing, you will lose your combo and lose out on the burst appeal points.
To change which girl shows up during the burst appeal, just hit the LB button at any time before you do the burst appeal. You can scroll through the girls' names by hitting the LB button multiple times. This is one place where the stats of each particular girl matters. One girl in your group may get you higher points from a burst appeal than the others if she has higher stats than the other girls naturally (the stats that you saw for each girl when first choosing them).
Burst appeals have the potential to give you much more points than any other kind of appeal. How many points it gives you depends on how much Danketsu your group has. If your group does not have much Danketsu, your group can actually receive less points than you would from normal appeals. If your Danketsu is low, you may want to ignore the burst appeal prompt and just keep using normal appeals.But if your Danketsu is high, you can receive double, triple, or more points than you would from normal appeals.
Auditions[]
Auditions
Auditions use the gameplay mentioned above, but your idols are competing to show up on either a regional or nationwide TV program. They will show up in their workout clothes and you are trying to impress a director. The director ranks your unit and you have to get at least a certain minimum rank for the director to decide that he likes your unit enough to put them on TV. The ranking that you have to get varies from audition to audition. The higher the score you get, the higher the judge will rank you.The ranking updates in real time, as you are appealing during the song, and you can see your placement in the upper right corner. If you have at least met the minimum ranking, a golden crown will appear next to the ranking to show you that, no matter how many more points you receive, you are guaranteed to win.
Once you win, your idol unit will put on the costume and accessories that you had previously selected for them to wear and you can watch them perform the song.
There are two types of auditions: regional and national auditions.
| Regional Auditions | National Auditions |
| Small fan increase in that one region | Large fan increase in all regions |
| Fan awareness up by a lot in that one region | Fan awareness up by a medium amount in all regions |
| No cost to participate | No cost to participate |
| Small money gain | Large money gain |
Advanced Tactics: You also have a chance of a Revival when participating in either a regional or national audtion.
Live Concerts[]
Live Concert
Live concerts use the same gameplay mentioned at the top of this page, except this time you are trying to please the audience. You are doing this live, so your idols are immediately wearing the costume and accessories you have put on them. You need to get the crowd happy up to at a certain minimum level. The level is shown right before you have to start appealing, and always shows a number. For example, maybe it's +5.2. Your idols will usually start at some negative number, and the more points you build up, the more the crowd will like them. The crowd happiness updates in real time on the upper right corner of the screen. You will know that you have gotten to the minimum level when a gold crown appears next to the level of happiness number. This means you have successfully passed the live concert.
Once you win, your unit will be called out for an encore.
There are two types of live concerts: regular live concerts and quintet live concerts.
Regular live concerts just have your 3 girls performing. If you win, you will have 2 encores. The first is all 3 girls performing the same song you just did. The second encore is optional. You have the choice to have one girl perform solo, or two girls (the ones that did not sing the lead part) perform together. You also sometimes have the option to change the song to one of your unit's other songs (if your unit has put out more than 1 song by that point in the game).
Quintet live concerts will let you choose 2 extra girls to invite to perform with you only for the encore. There is a chance they will not show up. If they don't, your unit will perform the same song they just did. But if the two extra girls show up, you will be given the opportunity to choose one of the quintet capable songs in The Idolm@ster 2. All 5 girls (your unit of 3 plus the 2 extras) will perform that song together.
| Regular Live Concerts | Quintet Live Concerts |
| Medium fan increase | Large fan increase |
| Fan awareness up by a medium amount | Fan awareness up by a lot |
| Medium cost to participate | Large cost to participate |
| Small money gain | Medium money gain |
All live concerts only give you fans and awareness in the region that you chose the live concert in.
Advanced Tactics: You also have a chance of a Keep when participating in a regular live concert (not a quintet live concert).
Festivals[]
Festival
Festivals use the same gameplay mentioned at the top of the page, but this time you are trying to beat another idol group by getting a higher score. As long as your score is higher than their score by the time the song is over, you will win. This is a live festival, so your unit will immediately be wearing the outfit and accessories you put on them.
Once you win, your unit will be called out for an encore, where they will perform the same song that you just did.
| Festivals |
| Large fan increase |
| Fan awareness up by a small amount |
| No cost to participate |
| Small money gain |
All festivals only give you fans and awareness in the region that you chose the festival in.
Advanced Tactics: You also have a chance of a Break or Super Break when participating in a festival.