InPark’s world’s fair specialist Jim Ogul reports on how world’s fair organizations and bids are doing in Europe, the Middle East and the US.
Image at top: Rendering of 2017 expo in Astana, Kazakhstan
Still relevant after all these years
Why hold a world’s fair?
What is it that inspires cities and countries in the 21st century to vie for the right to host an event that made its first appearance in 1851 (London’s Crystal Palace Exhibition)?
Dubai is visibly underway with its preparations for Expo 2020 that include significant infrastructure (see details below) and an extensive marketing campaign already launched. Toronto, Paris, Rotterdam, San Francisco and Houston are at present actively recruiting support and competing for the right to host the 2025 world’s fair – a major, three-month event that will be approved and overseen by the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE).
Between 2020 and 2025, BIE regulations allow one smaller, specialized, three-month expo which
Just as they did in 1851, world’s fairs bring with them major infrastructure improvements and focused interest in the host nations. They offer participating countries the opportunity to reach audiences in the tens of millions and enhance business interests as well as international diplomacy. They catalyze innovation and business in a number of ways.
World’s fairs may have been hanging in the closet a long time, but they’re still very much in style.
Will the US rejoin the BIE?
The U.S. has hosted many memorable and celebrated world expos, but for the past 32 years, the cities that have earned the opportunity to host have been in Europe and Asia. The recent, successful Milan Expo 2015 drew attendance over 21 million. Shanghai Expo 2010 hosted a record 73 million visits. The next full-scale world’s fair will be in Dubai in 2020.
Kazakhstan rolls back international travel barriers for Astana 2017
Smaller in scale and shorter in duration than Milan 2015, Shanghai 2010 or the pending Dubai 2020, Expo 2017 will take place over three months in Astana, Kazakhstan, opening June 10. As of this writing, 90 countries have agreed to participate and organizers project the event will attract 5 million visits.
Astana’s national participants will occupy space in structures built and provided by the expo. with no need to put up a structure. Participants are in various stages of preparation; Japan has already released renderings of its planned exhibit.
In a significant move, Kazakhstan will stimulate overseas attendance by lifting visa requirements for 38 countries starting in 2017. The countries that will be visa-free are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech-Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States.
The National Company “Astana EXPO-2017” has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with UN World Tourism Organization to hold a joint conference on “Tourism and the Energy of the Future” in Astana during EXPO-2017 in late June 2017. Tourism ministers from 150 countries are expected to participate.
Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayev announced the establishment of the Astana International Financial Center at the expo site following Astana Expo 2017. Long-range planning that incorporates residual use is becoming more and more integral to world’s fairs. All of the buildings at Astana Expo 2017 will be permanent.
New infrastructure & sponsors support Dubai 2020
Dubai Expo 2020 site preparation is underway with plans to complete major construction a year ahead of the Expo’s Opening Ceremony, on October 20, 2020.
Securing corporate partnership is integral to today’s Expo development and operations. In the last two months, Expo 2020 Dubai has signed up three Premier Partners, Emirates Airline, Etisalat and DP World in a series of deals worth hundreds of millions of US Dollars.
Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) has awarded a Dh10.6-billion ($2.8 billion) Route 2020 contract to the Expolink Consortium, to construct a metro link to the Expo 2020 site. The main Expo Station design has been inspired by the wings of an airplane, and the 15 trains that will transport visitors on Route 2020 will come equipped with an upgraded interior design to accommodate more passengers.
The Route 2020 extension will branch out from Nakheel Harbour and Tower station and end at the Expo 2020 site near Al Maktoum International Airport. 10.5 km will be elevated, while 4 km will be underground. The journey from Dubai Marina to the Expo will take 16 minutes. Expo’s have routinely triggered regional infrastructure improvements and have accelerated their implementation. In addition to facilitating transit to the Expo, the project will have an important legacy impact, providing commuter transportation to the Gardens, Discovery Gardens, Al Furjan, Jumeirah Golf Estates, and Dubai Investments Park communities, serving about 270,000 residents and office workers.
Lodz bids for 2022
Horticultural expos also in demand
Meanwhile, China will host the next such horticultural expo, in Beijing in 2019. Organized under the theme ‘Live Green, Live Better,’ it will be the second Horticultural Exhibition to be held in China, 20 years after Expo 1999 Kunming. The 960-hectare site will include four themed pavilions, a performing arts center and some 100 outdoor gardens.
See Jim Ogul’s online book, Tales from the Expo, free here on IPM.