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au4040

Natsu Basho Attendance Advice

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Greetings Sumo Forum.

I am making my first trip to live sumo, for the Natsu Basho in a few weeks. I am unfamiliar with the schedule but I would like to seek out your advice for the best day to attend - and any other advice you might have. I am very much looking forward to it.

Thank you.

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The daily schedule is much the same on each day, so it really depends on what you're looking to take in - a whole day from the very start with the youngsters in the morning, or just the "professionals" in juryo and makuuchi from ~14:30 (or even just the top division from ~16:00).

Looking at the ticket availability chart the five weekend days (which would have been my first suggestion) appear to be pretty much sold out; I forget if they do make some more tickets available on the day. Outside of those days, there's probably not much to separate the other 10 as far as the overall experience goes, though if you want to see some matches between the top-ranked yokozuna and ozeki you'll have to attend on Day 11 and later.

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Many thanks. I will be arriving in Tokyo on May 16 and now that we look at our itinerary, only a handful of days are we able to attend an event. Ideally we would like to go on that final Saturday but I see, like you say, that tickets are completely sold out. Do people re-sell tickets or is there any way to attain tickets after sold out?

Thanks so much.

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There are usually general admission tickets available the day-of. You pretty much have to show up around opening to get the general seating tickets, and they are not outstanding seats, but they're certainly good enough to let you soak up the ambiance.

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How fluid is the seating arrangement during the lower division bouts? I don't see any separate rates for the non-sekitori matches or anything, and would like to think that the Kyokai doesn't hate their fans so much that they won't let general admission people wander down into seats that are bought by someone else that no one is going to use for hours. The ring-side seats one can see from footage of lower division matches are practically empty, but there do seem to be *some* people there.

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How fluid is the seating arrangement during the lower division bouts? I don't see any separate rates for the non-sekitori matches or anything, and would like to think that the Kyokai doesn't hate their fans so much that they won't let general admission people wander down into seats that are bought by someone else that no one is going to use for hours. The ring-side seats one can see from footage of lower division matches are practically empty, but there do seem to be *some* people there.

During the last basho it was no problem to go down the 1st floor. You can't sit on the tamari without ticket, there is always a security guard who is checking the tickets, but it's no problem to sit in the front boxes during the lower divisions, which is more comfortable anyway. When Makushita starts there is also a guard outside the doors of the 1st floor.

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You definitely have a better look than on tamari, not so crowded as boxes, so if you can get row 1 to 4 i would say thumbs up or a 7-8

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