Now I'd like everyone to start off by sharing their ideas about what kind of event you want the School Idol Festival to be.

What do you mean?

Hmm, well…

First and foremost, it's a cultural festival created by school idols and the people who love school idols, right?

Right, but that's a bit too vague to set as a theme for the event. I want us to have a more clear, common theme.

Okay, why don't we all take turns saying what we imagine the event will be like, zura?

[Fade in/out.]

When I think of cultural festivals, I picture lots of stands and booths!

I know what you mean! There's yakisoba noodles, okonomiyaki, crepes, and maid cafes!

If we need a maid, Kotori has us covered.

N-Nozomi?! N-Now whatever could you be talking about…? Ahaha…

Well, you can leave the stands to me! I'll make mountains of Niceoodles!

And I'll make my special Brand New Stewshine!

While the enthusiasm is much appreciated, I believe we will need approval from the health department to handle food. We had to display our license at the beach hut too.

I don't imagine the application process would be easy for a bunch of students.

And we need to consider our budget. What amount of ingredients do we need to buy to make sure we don't run out?

I had no idea there was so much to think about when setting up booths.

Well, we've still got time to draw up the budget and get licensed, so let's make sure we do all the necessary research and plan accordingly.

So what else do you find at cultural festivals? Exhibits and stuff?

There are usually haunted houses and carnival stands, zura.

Now hold up! W-We can skip the haunted houses! Like, I'm sure there are a ton of people who are freaked out by them!

Really? I love them.

I know they're scary, but something makes me wanna go in and check them out!

If you know they're scary then why would you even go near them?!

Ohhh, I get it…

N-No, you don't! I'm not…!

It's okay if you don't want to say it in front of everyone, Kanan. If we're not doing a haunted house, how about a fortune-telling booth?

That's not a bad idea. Lots of people love fortune-telling.

Mwahaha! It seems the time for the great fallen angel Yohane has come at last! I will lead the way for my lost little demons!

Oh yeah, didn't you try doing that in front of the whole class that one time, Yoshiko? That really takes me back.

Oh yeah, I remember everyone was kinda weirded out when you took out your black robe and candles, zura.

Hey! Cut it out! Don't go pulling skeletons out of my closet! And it's Yohane!

S-Skeletons…?

So what else is there?

Some places hold beauty pageants.

Hmm, but since it's a school idol event, wouldn't it be better to have something more school idol-related?

Kanata's right. We can't just fill the festival with events and stalls and think it'll work. Why don't we try moving a little away from the cultural festival idea?

Hey, I wonder what other past School Idol Festivals have been like?

I bet Nico-chi and Hanayo might know a thing or two about that.

We should ask them later.

But we're in charge this year, so I wanna do a bunch of new stuff too!

Yeah! We want regular attendees to find our take on the festival new and fun, right?

However, the more exhibits we plan, the larger the venue needs to be.

And naturally, it would mean that we'll need more people to manage the event.

But it'll just be a regular old school idol event if all we do is put on live shows, don't you think?

We gotta make it something really special.

Why don't we have some kind of common theme running through all the performances?

All of our groups have their own unique flair, so I want to make sure we preserve that.

Yeah, I don't think it'd be a good idea to make any of us do something we're not comfortable with.

*Sigh* Looks like we've got a lot of problems to deal with from the get-go.

It seems we'll need to split this into things we need to do immediately and things we still must think about.

So this is the kinda tough stuff the Festival Committee had to do…

What with having to meet with all the involved parties, brainstorming ideas, making all the preparations, and then seeing it through to the end… It's no small task at all.

Yeah. The whole reason we're able to be school idols is because of this kind of support from all sorts of people.

We went through all this effort to get together, but we've barely made any progress at all.

Hmm. I guess consolidating our ideas is a lot easier said than done, huh?

It's usually so easy to decide when it's just us among our own groups. What's so different?

Maybe it's because we know ourselves. We have a solid idea of what makes us who we are and how we want to express that, through our songs or our costumes or anything else.

Then why don't we try taking the first step to defining that image for all of us, together?

Huh? Like what?

Well, for school cultural festivals and athletic festivals, you would generally start off by thinking of a slogan.

That's right. We start by creating a slogan whenever we plan for events at my school as well.

Then that's it!

All right! First thing's first, let's think up a slogan for the School Idol Festival!