Old expo hand has sage advice for Shanghai
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Shanghai's upcoming hosting of the World Expo is a "marvelous legacy in the making" that will benefit the city for generations to come, the former head of the 1986 Vancouver Expo has said.
Patrick Reid, who has headed Canadian interests at seven expos around the globe, including Vancouver, the last world's fair held in North America, told Xinhua in a recent telephone interview that he was certain Shanghai would be a "masterful repeat" of what has been done in other host cities.
Reid said the expo has become a "little passe in western nations, particularly in Europe where it has been held so many times," adding that the countries where it will still do extremely well is a country that is developing, powerful, and has economic clout as well as a massive audience.
"China has all those things," said the 85-year-old Irishman from his Vancouver home. "They have never had one before and will be great, I think. The combination of where China is today and where Shanghai is today creates a national receptivity in China and it is magnificent in terms of the site."
Reid, the father-in-law of Rick Hanson, the famed Paralympian athlete who in 1985 undertook a two-year, round-the-world wheelchair trip to raise money for spinal cord injury research, said he had been to Shanghai on three occasions.
As Shanghai had been creating "cities within cities for years," the expo would be a continuation of the same thing, a legacy in itself, observed Reid.
"I was in Shanghai when they were still very worried about whether or not they were going to win the bid to have the exhibition this year. But I assured them at the time, and I was certain at the time and ever since, that they would win the thing because there was so much interest in China in the world, even seven or eight years ago. Now it (the interest) is even more intense," he said.
Much like how the expo is transforming the area around the Huangpu on both sides of the river, the Vancouver expo experience rejuvenated the city's False Creek, previously an "industrial cesspool" as Reid called it.
With Vancouver awarded the expo in 1980 to mark the city's 100- year anniversary in 1986, the site was created on 173 acres of land that was previously industrial wasteland and a rail yard on the edge of the downtown core.
When the site was completed, the expo was opened to great fanfare by England's Prince Charles and Lady Diana, marking the start of the greatest six-month party the city had ever seen.
Among those participating in what was Canada's second expo after Montreal in 1967, were pavilions from 54 countries including China, and three American states.
With attractions such as the Great Hall of Ramses II displaying a host of priceless Egyptian artifacts, food from around the world and a host of big name performers, more than 22 million visitors attended over its six-month run.
Under a theme of transportation and communication, the fair did just that in leaving a lasting legacy of rapid transit -- the first of Vancouver's Skytrain lines was built for Expo '86 -- as well as the Science World, the Canada Place convention center and the B.C. Place stadium.
Following the fair, the expo lands became a political football, mainly for its value and who was going to pay for the clean-up of the polluted land from its previous industrial use. It was eventually purchased by Concord Pacific, a company controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, and developed into luxury housing towers. Today, it is home to thousands and a centerpiece of the city.
Reid called the timing of the expo "vital," essentially putting what was previously a small city on the global map. In February, Vancouver successfully hosted the Winter Olympic Games.
"In the 1980s, Canada, BC, Vancouver, in particular, was opening up to Asia. But there was also a lot of interest in Asia .. . about getting their kids educated here, about coming here to visit, partly a result of Expo '86," said Reid, whose first expo was the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle.
"The timing was good. We were able to capitalize on that by putting on an exhibition, which obviously had a focus on Asia," he added.
Reid said there has always been a tendency to look on expos in the number of countries that participate, the attendance and finally, whether it made a profit. The Vancouver expo was reported to have lost just over 300 million Canadian dollars (about 300 million U.S. dollars).
"I don't really know of any world expo that made a profit. On the face of it, there's overhead that has to be paid just to set the thing up. What you are doing is building a city within a city for a six-month run," he argued.
"Yes, the deficit was 300 million dollars (in Vancouver), but I think it can be right readily found with the benefits that came from it, particularly with the development that took place, and the amount of good publicity ... internationally as well as at home. You got to pay for the propaganda value of the whole thing," he added.
From his extensive experience at world expos in Canada, America, Italy and Japan, Reid said he was certain Shanghai would be a great success, but cautioned it shouldn't be compared to staging an Olympic Games. Such events were a "sprint," while an expo is a six-month "marathon."
"Olympics tend to be a television experience for people outside the actual event itself, whereas the exhibition is a much more intimate thing. You go there to interact with foreigners and their pavilions and it's personal. It requires a certain amount of exchange to keep that going for the length of time involved," he explained.
He advised that it was important for host cities to take care of its customers both inside and outside the venues, and that foreign countries are the key to the success of the exhibition.
"Because they have their own quirks or whims, the host nation, city, has to be very sensitive to what their requirements are in the physical sense," he stressed.
During the 1970 expo in Osaka, Japan, a diplomatic row ensued over chilled water. "It was vital to have chilled water in the pavilions to have air-conditioning because it was terribly hot in the summertime, as it will be in Shanghai," Reid recalled. "The local authorities, not really thinking it out too well, were charging an exorbitant amount of money for chilled water and it caused an enormous row."
"The success of Shanghai will depend, to a great extent, on how well the foreigners perform and how they perform depends to some extent, anyway, on how they are treated by the host organization," he asserted.
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