Expo Ticket Lottery

Congratulations on buying a ticket to the World Expo 2025! Now you can enjoy the best of what is on offer at the Expo site from all the exhibitors.

Except you can't.

The problem is that during the World Expo 2025 it has been anticipated that 28 million visitors will attend, an average of over 100,000 people every day. Some of the pavilions may, at best, be able to take a few hundred people at any one time. And therein lies the problem.

The solution to that is a lottery system that may be the most convoluted in Expo history, but it is designed to maximise attendance at the popular venues. In total there are 8 signature pavilions, 5 domestic pavilions, 11 private pavilions and 12 member pavilions (generally, the different participant nations) that plan to use the lottery system. Furthermore there are ticketed events throughout the Expo calendar, such as concerts and special experiences such as tea ceremonies and saunas, that must also be pre-booked.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly for visitors, you need a ticket BEFORE you enter the lottery. One can not enter the lottery first, get a great slot at a great pavilion, and then process payment etc. One must have a ticket to the Expo first before looking at the lottery. 

The lottery system does have a very good, yet slightly too complicated guide via the official website which is linked here. In short though, once you have a ticket for the Expo can you use that to add lottery applications to that ticket in different windows. The first window is between 3 to 2 months before the visit date, the second window is between 1 month and 8 days of your visit, and finally any pavilion slots still available can be booked between 3 days and 1 day before your arrival.

The lottery application process is difficult for visitors arriving at the Expo site early. This is because it is very hard to anticipate which pavilions are worth prioritising in the application, for which one can only apply for a maximum of 5 different activites. The host country pavilion is an example of that, a very impressive website speaks much about the concept of the pavilion but is very light on the user experience details that are so important to deciding what to prioritise. While the Japan pavilion looks aesthetically pleasing and interesting, there is little of substance for me to exclaim that it 100% is something exciting to see for the best user experience.

Should you really wish to attend the popular events and pavilions, the advance from the Expo team is to plan when to apply. The team expects that Saturdays, Sundays and any Japanese public holidays will be busiest, and that daytime slots will be busier than evenings. The Expo site is open until 22:00 each day, so why not end the day at one of the popular pavilions before going home? 

Even though one applies for 5 different activities per lottery application, the most successful one can be per application is one visit. This means that, prior to arriving on the Expo site, the maximum number of prebooked activities one could have for each day would be three. Use this to your strategic advantange and make sure to plan your bookings around time slots that you are looking for. There is nothing to stop you for example booking five different activities that start at 12:00 in one lottery application. Therefore, on hopefully receiving something at that time, your second application could be to do a pavilion activity at 16:00, for example. 

Don't despair if you haven't booked

While there is advice here about booking pavilions in advance and yes, it is expected some pavilions will be pre-booked only on the day of arrival and some special events may bring in tens of housands of locals desperate to attend, you will still have a great time at the World Expo no matter what. Most of the entertainment and pavilion access will be without reservation, and it's always possible that the any slots still not booked can be done so on the day of arrival. Even those slots in the immediate days before arriving are on a first-come, first-served basis so there could be something special to look forward to even for the more spontaneous of Expo visitors. 

Furthermore, it feels prudent here to mention that visitor numbers for the 2025 World Expo are currently, as of January 2025, much lower than Osaka has expected. Local press has reported that ticket numbers are currently 50% below the target set by the team at this stage. Now, they are also well aware that the immediate lottery deadline may trigger a flurry of ticket applications, but while that wouldn't be good for the Expo as a whole, it would mean that visitors attending may have an easier time getting to experience all there is to offer.

Ultimately, this process is one reason we have made this page. There is no concrete evidence, advice or knowledge at this stage to know which pavilions to focus on and where anybody would advise booking. I consider this a nightmare for the visitor, being asked to commit to something now they have no reason to have any legitimate opinion about. 

Hopefully, we at Expo Expert will get access to each and every pavilion in Osaka and with that be able to guide visitors as to what sites are must-see and what you can skip to focus on other pavilions.