By AKINA NISHI/ Staff Writer
April 22, 2025 at 17:39 JST
Visitors enter the east gate of the Osaka Kansai Expo at Yumeshima island in Osaka on April 13. (Sayuri Ide)
The Osaka Kansai Expo is off to a sluggish start in its first week after daily visitor numbers fell short of initial targets.
According to the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, a total of 524,937 people attended the world’s fair during the first seven days, beginning April 13.
Additionally, nearly 115,000 accredited personnel, including organizers, stakeholders and journalists, also attended the event.
The expo, which runs through Oct. 13, aims to attract 28.2 million visitors overall, a goal that requires an average of 150,000 attendees per day.
However, no single day so far has yet reached that target.
Still, organizers remain hopeful and Jun Takashina, an executive of the association, noted that operations are steadily improving.
“As entrance staff gain more experience, we’ll be able to flexibly raise the admission cap per time slot,” he said on April 21.
Organizers also revealed that 9.69 million advance tickets were sold prior to opening day.
With additional sales expected—particularly from school trips—the total could rise to 12 million. However, this figure still falls short of the initial goal of 14 million presale tickets.
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