Yeosu (The Korea Herald/ANN) - Visitors began to swarm in from 8 a.m. on the first day of Expo 2012 Yeosu today at the waterfront expo site in the southern coastal town.
The expo organising committee expected about 100,000 visitors on the first day.
The expo's first visitor was a 39-year-old Japanese man named Futakami Atsushi.
"Mr. Futakami is a self-acclaimed expo enthusiast who has seen more than 100 expos since the Kobe expo in 1981," said Cho Yong-hwan, chief of public relations at the expo organising committee.
"He had waited at the front entrance from 3:50 a.m."
Although the exhibit halls open at 9 a.m., the committee opened the expo site an hour earlier to give visitors more time to look around the 250,000-square-meter site.
The committee said it will continue to open the site at 8 a.m. on weekends and national holidays.
Cho said the committee expects the daily number of visitors to reach up to 250,000 during weekends.
"We have internal plans on how to handle up to 300,000 visitors, and we will decide on the maximum number of visitors we can accept," he said.
About 1.1 million admission tickets have been sold so far through advanced reservation.
Some of the main events today include the opening of the United Nations Pavilion, performances by Indonesia and Cambodia, and the Big Wave Concert featuring K-pop musicians Wonder Girls, Dynamic Duo and Simon D in the evening.
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