Expo almost over = queuing ! (updated)

With less than two weeks one week remaining before the 2005 World Exposition Aichi wraps up, I guess a lot of people who didn't make it at this expo in the past months, are trying to catch up now. A daunting task in this still very hot climate. And what a queues! I won't repeat what I expressed in my "Open Letter to the Expo visitor". But here are some pictures in front of the Belgian pavilion. To show you how bad it is. And remember that the Belgian pavilion was basically conceived to have no queues... in contrary to a lot of other pavilions where queueing was part of the attraction and/or the promotion strategy.

By the way, do you think that with this combination of "really long queues" and hot weather, people in Belgium, other parts of Europe or elsewhere would stay so civilised and calm? I can hardly imagine that!

Update 19/09 - The Japan Times has an article today, "Jammed expo makes visitors wait" on those queues.

The number of visitors topped 280,000 by 7 p.m., the biggest turnout yet. The number exceeded the cutoff point of 170,000 and entrance restrictions were invoked starting at 12:50 p.m., according to the Japan Association for the 2005 World Exposition.

I remain with my opinion that this isn't good management. The capacity of the Expo is about 170.000 visitors, and allowing that many more people is only causing danger, disappointment and frustration...