The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are less than a year-and-a-half away now, and as expected, the ticket details have been released.
If you live in Japan, congratulations, you will have your first chance at tickets starting in May. A ticket lottery is starting on May 9th and will continue until the 28th of May, when this opening ticket lottery closes. After that, you’ll have to wait until the fall for another chance at buying tickets, but you’ll know if you’ve succeeded in the lottery long before then. Sometime in the spring of 2020, you’ll also see actual ticket booths start to pop up, and tickets going for resale online. All of these details are available in a graph, but for specifics, you should go here (language options are at the top). Other details I won’t go too much into like the special ID you need as a Japanese resident to apply in the lottery, so make sure you go to an official source for all the nitty-gritty details.
If like me, you don’t live in Japan, tickets aren’t going on sale as quickly for you. I know that sucks, but there’s nothing to be done. Officially tickets are going to go on sale in June, but it will vary by region.
So instead of go to this website listing the official ticket resellers for the world, and look for your country. The Canadian reseller has no details other than that they’ll be offering some useful packages, but they have a sign-up for their newsletter to stay up to date as soon as they release information. From what I can tell most of the resellers are doing something similar (I didn’t investigate them all, but I opened up a dozen or so tabs). A few are offering VIP packages for sale already that they’re suggesting save your place, but I didn’t see details on how those packages affected ticket availability. Since it’s up to each individual reseller, I’d hope it includes a first-dibs system, but who knows. Whatever your country, your best choice seems to be to sign-up for the appropriate site as soon as possible, and maybe if you’re lucky your region will get ticket sales a little earlier than others.
While I know the lack of details outside Japan can be frustrating, it could be worse. A mysterious day in June is still a lot better than simply knowing that tickets will have to go on sale sometime before the actual games. That said if you want to prepare you can go check out the official prices here and start converting it into your currency to get a handle on what you’ll need to budget for June. I’d suggest checking airline prices, and hotels as well, because that will help you when your reseller announces prices, especially for comparing to any packages they’re selling.
Tokyo 2020 isn’t a distant dream anymore. You’ll be able to spend hard-earned money on it soon. I for one can’t wait, and I look forward to seeing you there.
Title image ©Tokyo 2020
