Photo/Illutration Staff on Nov. 30 demonstrate how to purchase advance tickets for the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo using mobile phones. (Koichi Ueda)

Advance online ticket sales for the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo began on Nov. 30 after months of deliberation among the organizers over the price point for entry.

Tickets available now, before the April 2025 start of the expo, range in price from 4,000 yen ($27) to 6,700 yen depending on the entry days. Cheaper tickets would have to be used in the early part of the expo, which continues until October 2025. 

All-day tickets bought once the expo has started will cost 7,500 yen for anyone 18 or older.

Expo organizers struggled for months to finally decide on that price, since they are relying on ticket sales to cover all operating costs of the expo.

If they set the price too low, sufficient revenues might not be generated, but if the price is too high, ticket sales might suffer.

The Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition hopes to sell about 14 million tickets before the start of the event and anticipates that the business sector will purchase half that number.

At one time in 2022, organizers considered a 6,000-yen figure for the all-day ticket, but numerous factors began to drive up the expo’s operating costs.

The assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022 and the Halloween crowd crush incident in Seoul later that year, in which about 150 people died, led to greater security measures for the Osaka Expo, adding to expenses.

Expo organizers also at one time expected corporate sponsors to pay for staff uniforms worn at the expo and other equipment. But such sponsors have been difficult to come by and the expo association may have to purchase uniforms and equipment themselves, increasing operating costs.

But when organizers proposed an 8,000-yen price tag for the all-day ticket, Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura pushed back, saying that the price was too high and that a compromise had to be reached.

While the ticket price has now finally been set, organizers have not disclosed any estimate of what the total operating expenses will likely be. Additionally, no decision has been made on what to do if the operating expenses exceed ticket revenues. 

Government officials have insisted that taxpayer money would not be used to cover any deficit, but some past world expos in other nations have left the governments there picking up the tab.

(This article was written by Kazuhito Suwa and Daisuke Matsuoka.)

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