Photo/Illutration Visitors at the Osaka Kansai Expo flock to the Grand Ring to see a special fireworks show on Sept. 27. (Takuya Tanabe)

The total number of general visitors to the Osaka Kansai Expo fell short of the projected 28.2 million, largely due to a slow start to the six-month event, according to organizers.

Still, the turnout of 25,578,986 exceeded the 22-million attendance at the 2005 Aichi Expo and the 23 million who visited the 1990 Osaka International Garden and Greenery Expo.

And the 2025 expo is expected to post an operating profit of 23 billion yen to 28 billion yen ($152 million to 185 million).

Including staff and stakeholders, the total number of visitors reached 29 million, according to the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition.

Held from April 13 to Oct. 13, the event saw modest daily attendance in its early months, often only a few tens of thousands.

Attendance surged in the final weeks, with more than 200,000 visitors daily from late September onward.

The busiest day was Monday, Sept. 22, which fell between a Sunday and a national holiday, drawing more than 225,000 visitors.

The slowest day was Tuesday, April 15, with fewer than 48,000 visitors.

In the final 30 days alone, more than 6.57 million people visited, accounting for over a quarter of the total turnout and reflecting last-minute surges seen at previous expos.

The association had expected to sell 23 million tickets, but only 22.07 million had been sold by Oct. 3. The shortfall was largely attributed to low attendance in the first half of the expo.

Despite growing popularity in the final weeks, daily visitor caps and mandatory reservations limited further growth.

“We are sorry that some people wanted to come but couldn’t,” Masakazu Tokura, chairman of the association, said.

The world fair also significantly increased local transit ridership.

According to Osaka Metro Co., 465 million passengers used its subway and New Tram network across 134 stations during the six-month expo period.

This marked a 15-percent increase compared with the same period last year, according to preliminary figures released on Oct. 14.

Yumeshima Station, the gateway to the expo site on the Chuo Line, saw 40 million passengers, averaging 217,000 riders per day.

To accommodate the surge, the railway operator revised its Chuo Line schedule, shortening train intervals to as little as 2.5 minutes and more than doubling the number of trains.

On the final day of the expo, three extra trains departed Yumeshima Station after the last regular run to handle the late-night crowds.

Osaka Metro has since scaled back operations on the Chuo Line to normal levels.

Half of the trains heading toward Yumeshima now turn back at the previous station, Cosmosquare, reducing the number of trains stopping at Yumeshima to a quarter of what was offered during the expo.

(This article was compiled from reports by Koji Nishimura and Kazuhide Setoguchi.)

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