OSAKA, Apr 20 (Kyodo/APP): With Sunday marking one week since the opening of the six-month World Exposition on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, organizers and visitors are bracing for hot weather, as entrance gates and pavilions have been experiencing long lines.
The Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition said it hopes to see an increase in daily visitors, which currently range from 40,000 to just under 80,000 on weekdays. If the current pace continues, attendance will fall short of the target of attracting 28.2 million people over the course of the event on Yumeshima through Oct. 13.
On the first Saturday since the event opened, visitors wearing hats and holding umbrellas for shade lined up at the east gate near Yumeshima Station, which connects directly to the expo site. The temperature reached 28.1 C, the highest since the expo began.
Hiromi Matsushita, a 36-year-old resident of Aichi Prefecture in central Japan, said after filling her bottle at a water station at the venue, “I’m happy I can drink cold water without creating trash.”
People also formed long queues in front of pavilions set up by participating countries and regions, as some allowed entry without prior reservations.
Visitors to a joint pavilion by the five Nordic countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden — can rent umbrellas while waiting outdoors, according to the facility’s organizer. Water mist systems have been installed at the Oman and South Korea pavilions.
In contrast to the east gate, the flow of visitors arriving by bus was smoother at the other entrance gate, the west gate.
The association is encouraging visitors traveling by private car to use park-and-ride systems, in which shuttle buses transport people from three designated parking lots to the venue. The nearest lot, Maishima on Yumeshima, about 15 minutes from the expo site, still had available spaces.
The expo drew nearly 120,000 visitors on its opening day, April 13, amid concerns over rising construction costs, delays in pavilion completion and low public support.
To reach the target of 28.2 million visitors, the expo would need to draw an average of 150,000 people daily. The association hopes attendance will increase in the latter half of the expo period, as seen in past editions.
In the past week, heavy rain and lightning warnings forced access to the top of the Grand Ring — the expo’s symbolic wooden structure with a circumference of 2 kilometers that encircles the venue — to be restricted.
Among the 158 participating countries and regions, India, Nepal, Vietnam and Brunei still have not completed their exhibits due to ongoing construction work on interiors and displays, according to the association.