Going to a Basho: Seats, Tickets, Timing
Three decisions get you into a sumo tournament: which one, which seat, and what time to arrive. The Association publishes enough to settle all three before you leave home — including a street view of the inside of the building.
This page assumes you have read how to watch from outside Japan, which covers the six tournaments and where each one is held. Here we are inside the building.
1. Which tournament
The month decides the city, so the first decision is really about travel. Three of the six are in Tokyo; the other three are in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka.
Everything below about the building applies to the three Tokyo tournaments, held at the 国技館 (Kokugikan) in Ryogoku. The tournaments in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka are in different buildings with their own layouts and their own access.
For a first visit, Tokyo is the simplest. The Association's own description puts the Kokugikan one minute's walk from JR Ryogoku station, five minutes from the subway, and about ten minutes from Tokyo or Ueno station.
That matters more than it sounds. You are leaving in the evening with several thousand other people, and the station is across the road.
2. Which seat
There are three kinds, and they run in one order: closest is dearest.
1. 溜席 (tamari-seki). The closest seats in the building, right at the edge of the clay. They are also called 砂かぶり席 (sunakaburi-seki) — "sand-covered seats" — which tells you how close they are. These are the most expensive.
2. マス席 (masu-seki). The square boxes you see on television, filling the floor behind the tamari-seki. You sit on cushions with your shoes off, sharing the square. Next in price.
3. 椅子席 (isu-seki). Ordinary chair seating, further back. The cheapest of the three, and the one that gives you the widest view of the hall.
For a first visit, take a masu-seki or a chair seat. Both give you a view of the hall as well as the ring — the ceremonies, the banners, the building filling up — which is most of what makes attending different from watching at home. The tamari-seki are extraordinary, but they are not where to start.
The trap for new viewers
"Closest" and "best" are not the same thing here, and the price order can mislead you into thinking they are. What you pay for at the front is proximity, not a better view of the occasion.
The Association publishes a seating plan and a Google Street View walk-through of the inside of the Kokugikan — the front of the building, the seating bowl, and a full circuit of both levels. You can stand roughly where your seat would be and look at the ring before you spend anything. Very few venues let you do that.
3. When to buy
Tickets go on sale well ahead. The Association's calendar gives an advance-sale date for each of the six tournaments, generally about a month to two months before the first day.
The dates are published years in advance alongside the tournament dates themselves, so if you are planning a trip you can work backwards from a specific on-sale date rather than guessing.
The trap for new viewers
Do not aim for the first day because it sounds like the exciting one. The tournament builds: the last few days carry the championship and the results that settle promotions. If you are choosing one day, choose a late one — and if you are choosing one day of all fifteen, choose 千秋楽 (senshuraku), the final Sunday.
4. What time to arrive
The doors open in the morning and the lowest ranks compete first, as why the best bouts come last explains. If you arrive at the start you will get a nearly empty hall and hours of sumo before the men you have heard of appear.
That is not a bad plan — it is quiet, you can move around, and the building filling up around you is part of the experience. But if your day is short, arriving in the late afternoon gets you the top division and everything around it.
One thing you cannot do from a stream: watch the wrestlers arriving and the hall changing character. If you have gone to the trouble of attending, arriving early is the part you cannot get at home.
What we are not telling you
We are not listing ticket prices or vendors here, for the same reason we do not list broadcasters in the previous article: they change, and a page that is wrong is worse than a page that is quiet.
Prices, seat categories and how to buy from outside Japan are all things to check close to the date, on the Association's own ticket pages.
What to watch for
When you are inside, spend the first few minutes looking at the roof above the ring rather than the ring.
It is the thing a broadcast never shows you properly, it is suspended over the clay with nothing under it, and it is the clearest signal that the building was designed around one small circle of earth.
What time to arrive, worked out properly.