• International Expositions—Fighting for Survival
    Awake!—1988 | January 8

    • EXPO 86: The 1986 World Exposition

      The most recent international exposition was EXPO 86 at Vancouver, Canada, from May 2 to October 13, 1986. More than 90 pavilions dotted its 173-acre [70 ha] site, and 54 nations participated. The theme of EXPO 86 was “transportation and communications,” and its theme statement was “World in Motion​—World in Touch.” Its centerpiece was Expo Centre, a 17-story stainless-steel geodesic dome. Among other things, it housed a 500-seat Omnimax theater for projecting movies on a peripheral-vision screen eight stories high!

      The Soviet Union and the United States displayed their space vehicles and satellites to show what they have accomplished in travel and communications. The showpiece of the fair, however, was the Canada Pavilion located at Canada Place, a spectacular $144.8 million structure meant to be a “permanent federal government complex.” Built on a pier in Vancouver’s harbor, it looks like a combination of a luxury liner and a giant five-masted sailing vessel about to put right out to sea.

      After Expo ended, Canada Place became the World Trade Centre. It is well suited for that. Inside, it is as big as two football fields. It is able to accommodate a convention crowd of 5,000, offers 23 other meeting rooms, and even has a 500-room hotel and ballroom.

      “Was It Really Worth It?”

      The continuing use of the buildings and the site developments cause some to say that whatever the cost, a world exposition is well worth it. They point to the jobs created; the increase of tourism; the tax revenues; and the new transportation system, bridges, and highways, as well as all the other worthwhile spin-offs.

      Many praise the amount of clean entertainment for families at an exposition. At Expo, in addition to the educational exhibits in each pavilion, there was a midway, four amphitheaters and movies, and more than 43,000 free performances, such as dances and concerts. Its atmosphere caused one writer to say about it: “You feel good just walking around.” One of its films was “nominated for an Academy Award for the best live action short subject category.”

      But “was it really worth it?” one newspaper asked. On the last day of EXPO 86, a Canadian newspaper, when introducing the matter of the hundreds of millions of dollars of debts to be faced, said: “Tomorrow, the hangover begins.”

      Costs and Debts

      “The fair finished with a deficit of $349 million,” The Toronto Star reported. Losses in operating past expositions are noted in the box already referred to. So EXPO 86 was no exception. True, it had over 22 million visitors​—more than expected. And it had excellent free publicity all over the world​—10,000 journalists from 60 countries accredited to write about it. It had been eight years in preparation and had a “brilliant global marketing campaign” to promote it. Yet it lost money.

      However, would not the economy get a boost? “The province’s troubled economy received a brief hit like the one a drug user seeks​—quick, euphoric. But the promised international investment doesn’t seem to have materialized,” said one report. Unemployment in the area dropped back to its pre-Expo level.

      Costs to the taxpayer are not over. Though a beautiful facility like Canada Place has future use, still it would require renovation. Simply gutting it would cost an estimated $10 million. The cost of renovation has already run about $18 million. But there are other factors that indicate a decline for expositions.

      Other Decline Factors

      One writer observed: “We have come to suspect technology; at the very least, we are no longer awed by it.” It no longer arouses unqualified admiration.

      David Suzuki, a Canadian scientist, said about EXPO 86: “Amidst the glowing promise of artificial intelligence, space travel and nuclear fusion, [it] gave no indication of the overriding military consequences of this work, the enormous profits to be reaped by private industry or the social, environmental and personal consequences of the coming changes.”