World's Fair Voyage Tips and guide

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A World's Fair (commonly called World Exposition, or simply Expo) is large international festival of arts and sciences. Participating countries present artistic and educational displays in national pavilions to showcase world issues or their country's culture and history. Such is the scale of these events that they are sanctioned by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) in order to control expense and to avoid any clashes with other expositions and large international events, such as the Olympics.

The origins of world's fairs lay in a French tradition of national exhibitions, and the success of the French Industrial Exposition in 1844 lead to the adoption of such events by neighbouring European countries. The idea made its way to the United Kingdom, which held the "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations", better known as simply "The Great Exhibition", in 1851. This event set down the precedent in terms of scale and content, which expanded beyond a single topic and included exhibits on wider aspects of society, including art-and-design education, international trade and relations, and tourism. This format was later copied by several other cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Paris, who held numerous world's fairs.

The rising popularity of the world's fair concept brought conflicts of schedule and interest. In 1928, a convention to schedule regular World's Fairs was created, and the BIE was created to coordinate World's Fair organization. Soon after, the themes that typified world's fairs began to change. An international exhibition in New York in 1939-40 began a shift from the unveiling and showcasing of new technologies and practices to exhibits relating to human and cultural experiences. This paradigm continued after the Second World War, and term 'Expo' for world's fairs was coined in 1967 at Montréal's International and Universal Exposition, or Expo 1967.

Eventually, the idea that world's fairs were a great vehicle to advertise countries became prominent, and the pavilions began to carry greater cultural and historical references to the countries that displayed them. Today, world's fairs employ not only nation branding, but throwbacks to the old paradigms of world's fairs, showcasing new and innovative technologies, and reflections on the prevailing human condition and experience.

There are three types of world's fair as set out by the BIE:

• Universal Expositions (World Expositions) are the largest expositions and are considered the 'major' fairs. These events take place every five years and last anywhere between three weeks and three months. They are the most expensive and often most extravagant type of fair, as large international participation requires enough area for each country to promote their national brand. Participants are required to build their own pavilions. This means no expense is spared, often resulting in some spectacular exhibits. Themes are usually universal to the human experience. All events of a suitable scale prior to 1928 were retrospectively made Universal Expositions. Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has been postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• International Expositions (Specialized Expositions) are the smaller than Universal Expositions, and are considered the 'minor' fairs. These events tend to encompass much narrower or specialised themes. There is no set frequency to these events, although only one may be held in the five-year gap between the larger Universal Exhibitions.
• International Horticultural Expositions are specialised events which showcase floral displays, botanical gardens and anything else to do with plants. Although in theory they can take place annually (so long as they are in different countries), in practice they are not. These events normally last anywhere between three and six months, and are held on sites no smaller than 50 hectares. They are jointly sanctioned by the BIE and the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH). The 2019 event was held in Beijing, China.

The BIE also recognizes the Milan Triennial Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Architecture (also Triennale di Milano, Milan Triennale, or Triennale di Milano International Exhibition) for historical reasons, provided that it retains its original features. The Triennale showcases modern decorative and industrial arts. In 2019, the XXII Triennale focused on design approaches that explore the relations between humans, nature and other species.

Name	Type	Location	Dates	Theme
Expo 2025	Universal Exposition	Osaka, Japan	April 13 - October 13	Designing Future Society for Our Lives
Expo 2030	World Exposition	Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

• Expo Beijing 2019, a Horticultural Exposition in Beijing, China
• Expo 2020, a Universal Exposition in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
• Floriade 2022, a Horticultural Exposition in Almere, Netherlands
• Internationale Gartenausstellung 2017 (IGA 2017), a Horticultural Exposition, in Berlin, Germany, ran from 7 April to 6 October 2017.
• Expo Astana 2017, an International Exposition in Astana,Kazakhstan, ran from 10 June to 10 September 2017, with theme Energy of the Future.
• XXI Triennale International Exhibition, in Milan, Italy, ran from 2 April to 12 September 2016 with theme 21st Century. Design after Design.
• Expo 2016, a Horticultural Exposition in Antalya, Turkey, ran from 23 April to 30 October 2016, with the theme A Green Life for Future Generations.
• Expo Milan 2015, a Universal Exposition in Milan, Italy, ran from 1 May to 31 October 2015 with the theme Feeding the planet, energy for life.
• Expo 2012 (2012 여수 세계 박람회 International Exposition Yeosu Korea 2012) was an International Exposition held in Yeosu, South Korea. The theme of the event was 'The Living Ocean and Coast', and it ran for three months, from May 12 - August 12, 2012. Expo 2012 received over 8,000,000 visitors and was attended by 103 countries and 8 international organisations.
• Floridae 2012 was the most recent instalment of the Netherlands' decennial flowering and gardening exhibition, the sixth time it was sanctioned by the BIE and AIPH as an International Horticultural Exposition. Held in the southeastern city of Venlo, the theme of the event was 'Be part of the theatre in nature; get closer to the quality of life'
• Expo 2010 ((上海世博会 Shanghai Shibohui), a Universal Exposition, was held in Shanghai, China. The theme was 'Better City – Better Life', focusing on urban development. The event ran for 184 days, opening on May 1 and closing on October 31, 2010. World fair attendance records were broken, with more than 73,000,000 overall visitors over the six months, including more than 1,000,000 visitors on October 16 alone. Over 180 countries participated in the event.

Most buildings built for these events are designed to be temporary, but there would sometimes be a building or two that were built more sturdily so they could be repurposed after the event.

• Chicago — The 41.790556-87.5827781 Palace of Fine Arts and 41.879444-87.6238892 World Congress Auxillary Building from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition have today been repurposed as the Museum of Science and Industry and Art Institute of Chicago respectively. There is also the 41.786389-87.5827783 Garden of the Phoenix , a traditional Japanese garden in Grant Park, which was part of the Japanese pavilion at the aforementioned 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and later extended for the 1933-34 Century of Progress International Exposition. The buildings of the Japanese pavilion no longer survive, having been destroyed in a fire in 1946, and the garden is all that remains.
• Melbourne — The -37.804722144.9713894 Royal Exhibition Building was constructed for the 1880-81 Melbourne International Exhibition, and extended for the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition. Only the former is officially recognized by the BIE as a World's Fair.
• Montreal — A few landmarks from the Expo 1967 survive, the most famous of which is the 45.514092-73.5314945 USA Pavilion with its iconic geodesic dome desinged by the famed architect Buckminster Fuller. Today, it has been repurpose as the Biosphère de Montréal, a museum dedicated to the environment. The 45.5-73.5438896 Habitat 67 apartment complex, designed by Israeli architect Moshe Safdie and built as a model showpiece of urban living for the Expo, is one of the finest surviving examples of brutalist architecture in the world. The 45.505557-73.5258357 France Pavilion and 45.504605-73.5259848 Quebec Pavilion now house the Montreal Casino.
• Seattle — The 47.6204-122.34919 Space Needle , Seattle's most recognisable landmark, was built as the then-futuristic centrepiece of the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, while the Seattle Center Monorail was built as a futuristic form of transportation for the World's Fair.

• Seville — Several pavilions from the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 survive, the most famous of which is the 37.37708-5.98690110 Plaza de España , originally built as the centrepiece of that exposition, and today one of the city's most recognisable landmarks. An exceptionally large number of major buildings from that exposition, 25 in total, survive into the present, though not all of them are open to the public.
• St. Louis — Uniquely among World's Fairs, the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition also hosted the 1904 Summer Olympics. While most of the buildings were designed to be temporary, a few survive into the present. The grandest of the surviving buildings is the 38.639444-90.29444411 Palace of Fine Arts , which has today been repurposed as the Saint Louis Art Museum. The 38.648-90.305212 Administrative Building is today Brookings Hall, part of the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The 38.635565-90.28752913 Flight Cage is today the aviary of the Saint Louis Zoo.
• Shanghai — The 31.186389121.49027814 China Pavilion of the 2010 World Expo has been preserved, and has been repurposed as the China Art Museum. The venue of the expo is now a public park known as Expo Park.