So far, Expo 2015's confirmed participants represent 86% of the world's population. I put this map together tonight to show the countries that haven't confirmed yet. The ones with percentages are countries who represent more than 0.5% of the world's population:

- United States, 4.46%
- Philippines, 1.38%
- United Kingdom, 0.89%
- South Africa, 0.75%
- Ukraine, 0.64%
- Poland, 0.54%
- Canada, 0.50%

Expo 2015 opens in 652 days. I hope we don't have a repeat of Expo 2010's United States Pavilion, which was put together at the last minute... or worse, a repeat of Expo 2000's United States Pavilion which was canceled.

We need to find a way to do this better here in the United States. We need an ongoing organization dedicated specifically to fund and authorize our participation in world's fairs.

Dispatch from Milan: Expo 2015's International Participants Meeting

Expo 2015, the next world's fair, is 923 days away, but from what I've gotten to witness here in Milan, folks are busy as if it were sooner. It's a testament to just how much there is to do in creating a world's fair.

This week, Milan has played host to over 1000 international visitors (from 100+ countries) in Expo 2015's International Participants Meeting. This is the first time I've had the opportunity to witness the organization of a large-scale exposition in person.


PARTICIPATING NATIONS

At this stage, countries are still signing on (it just hit 100... and Iraq is the most recent addition). Since many developing nations have their participation subsidized by the Expo authority, the list includes many of these, but I've also noticed another trend: Countries that are bidding for future world's fairs also feature prominently. Unfortunately, many larger countries have not officially signed on, but I suspect they will soon. The United States, notably, has unofficially said we're here, but there has been no official agreement yet. Also absent, so far, is the entire English-speaking world. I suspect that will change in the coming year.


CLUSTERS

In our recent World's Fair Podcast, we spoke with Stefano Gatti, the director of international affairs and he did a fantastic job describing one noteworthy distinction of Expo 2015: Smaller and developing nations, which in the past would typically be grouped by geography, will now be grouped based on an association with a food theme. Those themes (Fruits and Legumes, Spices, Bio-Mediterraneum, Arid Zones, Rice, Cocoa, Coffee, Cereals and Tubers, and Islands) will be developed in clusters of countries, often involving countries with no geographical connection.


QUESTIONS

Here are some questions I hope to answer in the coming days:

- Presumably, Expo 2015 will have a mascot. How will this be determined and when?

- How much of a marketing effort will be made to foreign countries? When I talk with Americans about Expo 2015, they're typically interested when they hear that world's fairs still happen... and the next one's in Milan with a food theme. It sells itself... more so than Shanghai's lackluster advertising campaign for Expo 2010 in the United States.

- Corporations have a very low profile here as compared to past ones. There seems to be no plan (or room on the map) for corporate plans. Might that change?

- They expect 130 nations to participate: 60 in self-built pavilions and 70 in the pavilions clusters I mentioned earlier. Is there a plan if more nations wish to participate? The much smaller Expo '98 in Lisbon ran across this problem and had to add more space to accommodate more countries.

- What kind of connection might be made between Expo 2015 and the 100th anniversary celebrations of San Francisco's 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition? 


PHOTOS AND VIDEO

Naturally, I've taken lots of photos and video of this year's International Participants Meeting. I'll be posting those in the near future.

Asimov on the 2014 World's Fair

It's been a while since I last read Asimov's article speculating on what a world's fair in 2014 would be like (written during the 1964 World's Fair... he even mentions the GE Carousel of Progress!). It really makes me wish I could write a nice letter back to Asimov as we're just two years away from 2014 now.

Visit to the World's Fair of 2014, by Isaac Asimov

Milan, Italy to Host Expo 2015

It was announced in Paris today that Milan, Italy will host Expo 2015
under the theme "Feeding the Planet / Energy for Life." It was
selected by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) over rival
city Izmir, Turkey.

One Year Until Expo 2008

Yesterday marked the "one year to go" mark until Expo 2008. Given the difficulty I've found in past years finding hotels during world's fairs, I'm going to try to start booking a room soon since most hotels don't allow reservations until one year before a date.

Also, I won't be making the mistake I made in 2005 and go the last couple of weeks. It seems that people all over the world share one universal trait: procrastination. If you look at attendance figures of world's fairs, there's always a huge spike right at the end.

Given the new timing of expositions (a big one every five years with a small one in between two big ones... but not in an adjacent year) and given that all three cities bidding for the 2012-2013 slot have chosen 2012, we'll have three expositions in the next five years! We won't have two back-to-back non-expo years until 2013-2014!

It's clear that excitement is building worldwide for expositions. In 2012, we might have our first Polish expo (in Wroclaw) or our first African expo (in Tangier, Morocco). In 2012 or 2015. We could have our first world's fair in an Islamic country in either Tangier (2012) or Izmir, Turkey (2015).

Notably Absent from the list of planned and potential future expos are any in the Western Hemisphere. The last exposition held in the Western Hemisphere was Expo 86 in Vancouver. With the next slot available for bidding being 2017-2018, we'll see at least a 31 year gap in North American world's fairs, very shocking given the strong history of international expositions in the United States particularly.

Let's hope the United States, Canada, or Mexico picks up the torch for 2017, 2018, or 2020