Tickets to newly opened Ghibli Park sold out for rest of year, being scalped online

NAGAKUTE, Aichi -- Demand for tickets to the newly opened Ghibli Park has outstripped supply in this city near Nagoya, leading to scalping online.

Fans of Ghibli's productions have been flocking to the park from across the country and overseas following its opening on Nov. 1. With tickets offered on a time slot reservation basis, the rest of this year has already been fully booked.

Outside the gates to the park's main area, Ghibli's Grand Warehouse, about 500 people were lined up for the park's 10 a.m. opening on its first day. Some visitors who had failed to get tickets via the online raffle traveled to the park's gates just to soak up the atmosphere. A 39-year-old woman from Nagoya's Nakagawa Ward said that even though she could not get tickets yet, she hoped to eventually shop for stuffed animals available only in the park's store.

The Mainichi Shimbun witnessed tickets apparently being resold to a woman in a group of three who traveled to the park from outside the prefecture. The woman and a man exchanged tickets for an envelope containing cash. The man offered to give her change, but she refused, thanking him profusely.

On the e-commerce site Mercari, a set of two tickets to Ghibli's Grand Warehouse were posted for 45,000 yen (about $300), many times the normal adult ticket price of 2,000 yen for weekdays and 2,500 yen for weekends and holidays ($13 and $17, respectively).

At a press conference on Nov. 1, Aichi Gov. Hideaki Omura said, "It is not ideal for tickets to be bought just to be resold at a premium. I hope people refrain from doing things like that." According to Ghibli Park's website, the park may ask visitors to present their IDs for verification upon arrival, and is asking them to bring their driver's licenses and other forms of ID.

(Japanese original by Sanami Kato and Shiho Sakai, Nagoya News Center)