The World's Fair Podcast, Episode 29: César Corona on Public Diplomacy and World's Fairs

Episode 29 of the World's Fair Podcast is now available for download as an MP3 or via iTunes. In it, Urso Chappell and John McGregor talk to César Corona about the role of public diplomacy at international expositions.

Find out more about César Corona's projects at InternationalExpositions.org.

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Listen to other episodes of the World's Fair Podcast.

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

Memorabilia: Keeping the Expo Alive After Closing Day

My eighth post for the official Expo 2012 blog talks about souvenirs... a broad topic, I admit...

http://2012expo.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/memorabilia-keeping-the-expo-alive-after-closing-day/

Some Lesser Known World's Fair Architectural Achievements

My latest article in the official Expo 2012 blog is now up!

Click here.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Expo 2010, Expo 2012, and Expo 2020

This week, the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued a new document "Another U.S. Deficit - China and America - Public Diplomacy in the Age of the Internet," which includes a great deal of information about United States participation in Expo 2010, the committee's call for a US Pavilion at Expo 2012, and support for re-joining the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) to help a US bid for Expo 2020.

Here's the synopsis at the beginning of the document (page 12):
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Many Americans now view World Expos as antiquated affairs. The rest of the globe does not, and U.S. ambivalence towards participationunduly offends the host nations. Given that more than 7,000,000 Chinese visited the U.S. Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010, the lack of effort caused by unnecessary hesitation and delays on the part of the Obama Administration only squandered an unprecedented opportunity to put our best foot forward to an audience over 10 times the size of the number of Chinese who visit the United States in a single year. Although large crowds streamed in, many were disappointed by the low-tech and rather ordinary exhibits inside which failed to demonstrate American technological, scientific and commercial expertise. Those same mistakes should not be repeated in the lead up to the 2012 Expo in Korea. Given recent interest
by Texas and California in hosting the 2020 Expo, the U.S. should seek immediately to re-join the Bureau of International Expositions in order to bid for the 2020 Expo. Consideration should be given to repealing legislation limiting U.S. government involvement in Expos, an action that would give the private sector greater confidence in our efforts and lead to more coherent funding.
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I'm glad to hear that Congress is looking into the issue of United States participation in world's fairs. Needless to say, I wholeheartedly support the US rejoining the BIE, our country's participation in Expo 2012, and the bids for Expo 2020.

I take a bit of an exception to the Obama Administration being blamed for US Pavilion delays, however, since it was under the Bush Administration that things had stalled. Later in the document, they do point out that it was Hillary Clinton's State Department that finally got the ball rolling.

I think this document brings us a few steps closer to rejoining the BIE, having a US Pavilion at Expo 2012 in Yeosu, and security government support for an Expo 2020 bid.

The full report can be downloaded at:
http://lugar.senate.gov/issues/foreign/diplomacy/ChinaInternet.pdf

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Since I wrote this shortly after receiving the document, I've had a chance to read more. As such, here's an addendum:

In the main body of the document, it does refer to Hillary Clinton's efforts to save the pavilion and recognizes the difficulty of continuity between the two administrations. That leads me to think the synopsis on page 12 (of the PDF... labeled page 6) blaming the Obama Administration could be a typo. Later, they refer to the Bush Administration's failure to have a US Pavilion at Hannover's Expo 2000. That's clearly a mistake since George W. Bush did not come into office until January 2001.

Senate Foreign Relations Report Supports Expo 2020 Bid and Regrets Expo 2010 US Pavilion

On Tuesday, the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee will issue a report. Here are the details:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/uschinadiplomacypoliticseducationrights

Most interesting, for those of us interested in world's fair issues are these lines from the AFP news story:

"The report also faulted the United States for underfunding public diplomacy.

It regretted the quality of the US pavilion at last year's World Expo in Shanghai, which was cobbled together at the last minute using private funds and featured simple films about the United States.

Even if many Americans no longer care about global expositions, the report said, some 70 million people -- most of them Chinese -- visited the Shanghai Expo and seven million went to the US pavilion.

Considering that fewer than one million Chinese visit the United States each year, "the Expo was a squandered opportunity to have maximum impact on our bilateral relationship," the report said.

The report called for the United States to consider changing the law to allow government support for exposition efforts, including for the US pavilion at the 2012 Expo in South Korea, and to make a bid for the 2020 World Expo."

Exhibits About Future Expos

A conversation over on WorldsFairCommunity.org made me think about exhibits about future expos at an existing expo.

I remember seeing an exhibit about Expo 85 near the exit of the Japan Pavilion at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville. As a high school student, I so wished I could afford the $1985.00 for their cheapest travel package. I believe they also had an ad in the guidebook, something I've seen in other guidebooks.

At the 1984 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Canada devoted a lot of space to Expo 86. I remember getting my first Expo 86 souvenir pins there in New Orleans.

The Germany Pavilion at Expo 98 in Lisbon had a huge section about Expo 2000 including a motion simulator ride where you went underwater in Lisbon and then surfaced and flew over the Expo 2000 site in Hannover.



Even though China hadn't won Expo 2010 yet, the China Pavilion at Expo 2000 promoted its bid for Shanghai. 2010 seems so far in the future back then.



Not surprisingly, the China Pavilion at Expo 2005 devoted a lot of space to promoting Expo 2010. They also showed a large film in their pavilion at Expo 2008.

At that same expo, next door the Korean Pavilion promoted its bid for Expo 2012, which it would end up winning.



Korea promoted Expo 2012 at Expo 2008 with an exhibit and a host that described the plans to guests. She actually spent a lot of time talking to me (in English) about the history of expos. Italy also promoted Expo 2015 at their Expo 2008 pavilion.

Another side topic to this would be Olympics being promoted in pavilions.



In these photos, Paris promoted their 1992 Olympic bid at Expo 86 and Italy promoted the 2008 Winter Olympics in Torino.

Anyone else remember any others?

Yeosu, South Korea to Host Expo 2012

The members of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) voted today selecting Yeosu, South Korea as the host for the 2012 International Exposition. Yeosu beat out two competing cities: Wroclaw, Poland and Tangier, Morocco.

Both Yeosu and Wroclaw had previously competed for Expo 2010, losing to Shanghai, China.

Expo 2012 Wroclaw Video

The folks in Wroclaw, Poland bidding for Expo 2012 have updated their web site and added this amazing video. A larger size with better resolution is available on their site here.

A Wroclaw world's fair would certainly be the first to feature a Hall of Serious Fun. It makes me wonder what 19th Century world's fair designers would think of us in 2007 as they designed their Halls of Agriculture and the like. I, for one, am ready for a Hall of Serious Fun. In many ways, that's what I like about world's fairs. They're serious fun!

The Hall of Tranquility reminds me much of a trend I've seen in recent years in exposition design. World's fairs can become one building of overstimulation after another. Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany featured a chill-out space called Scape, which was a welcome respite from the rest of the pavilions. I noticed that same year that Austria and India both included areas where you could relax and escape lights and sounds. I hope to see this trend continue.

Wroclaw is competing against Yeosu, South Korea and Tangier, Morocco to host a small 3-month exposition in 2012. So far, I've been impressed with all three presentations, although the new Wroclaw video presentation doesn't seem to match the bid logo that was created earlier.

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