Over six months, around 73 million people packed national and theme displays, an average of 397,000 daily spread over an area roughly the size of New York City's Central Park. Guinness World Records says it may launch a new category to reflect the Shanghai Expo numbers, and doesn't currently list any peacetime gathering larger than the 20 million in 2001 for an Indian pilgrimage known as Kumbh Mela.
Like the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Expo featured a dazzling opening ceremony and stifling security measures. But while the Olympics were designed to introduce the new China to a global audience, Shanghai's Expo was a pageant of foreign nations coming out to the Chinese people.
The $24 mini-world tour, however, translated into huge queues. 'Undeterred by the searing heat or soaking rain, [visitors] waited patiently in long lines to witness this much anticipated event,' China's premier, Wen Jiabao said on a final-day visit Sunday, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
It was often an eight-hour wait at Saudi Arabia's moon-shaped IMAX theater. A territorial dispute in recent months sparked protests against Japan in many Chinese cities, but the grumbling in Shanghai stemmed from the average four-hour wait to enter its exhibit inside a purple cocoon. China's monumental red pagoda was a reminder of who hosted the party and admission quotas for it filled within minutes each morning.
To pay homage to a Little Mermaid statue that had been temporarily transferred from Copenhagen Harbor, 5.5 million people poured into Denmark's pavilion. That, noted Commissioner General Christopher Bo Bramsen, 'happens to be the nation's population.'
What it all cost is a secret that Shanghai authorities refuse to divulge. Local media estimated $40 billion was spent on a citywide upgrade including, for instance, 150 new subway stops in three years.
If each person through the Expo turnstiles visitor had paid full fare, the event's ticket sales would have generated around $1.8 billion. But millions of Shanghai residents entered free and numerous Chinese tours were government subsidized.
Now, participating nations are required to disassemble their multimillion-dollar pavilions─an ironic finale to a fair centering on sustainable urban development. Still a taboo subject: how Shanghai will redevelop the now-paved neighborhood, formerly a steelworks with low-income housing that straddles two sides of the Huangpu River. Expo authorities refused permission for an Oct. 21 conference on the subject.
Shanghai's Expo Bureau didn't respond to a list of questions.
For professional people watchers, the Expo provided unique insight into how to comfort, entertain and manage huge crowds. 'Even though it's off the charts, it's not something you can't learn from,' said Gordon Linden, co-author of newly published 'The Expo Book.'
In interviews, experts cited takeaways for global media, tourism, transportation and security companies that see Chinese as a target market. Fewer than 3% of Chinese have a passport now. But by taking 47 million trips abroad last year and another 1.9 billion domestically, China's population represents a sizable global travel trend.
The Expo reinforced, unsurprisingly, that Chinese prefer Asian food over Irish fare. Oddly, anecdotal evidence from organizers indicates visitor anxiety levels peaked in the mornings. Security officers concluded confrontation might backfire in vast crowds, so queue jumpers often went unchallenged.
Pavilion gatekeepers were deluged with demands─and bribes─to allow priority entry. Germany's Mr. Willers said he witnessed 'miracles' when wheelchair-bound visitors walked after gaining admission.
Visitors often rushed past cultural relics, like the Frida Kahlo painting in Mexico's exhibit. But they perched on $2 foam stools to enjoy Australians in hokey cow and kangaroo costumes.
Colombia tripled its shop revenue by introducing 'very basic' $1.50 bracelets when its $45 handbags went unsold, said general manager Juan Pablo Cavelier. Enthusiasm ran highest for free stamps in commemorative Expo passports.
High visitor numbers were always anticipated, and Expo organizers won plaudits for supplying ample clean water stations and toilets. After queues turned riotous during trial runs ahead of the May 1 opening, mazes to organize lines were quickly installed , helping to limit Expo incidents to daily fisticuffs .
'There is no previous scale or metric to go by,' said Mark Germyn, a theme-park veteran who was chief operating officer for the U.S. pavilion.
Fairgoers smoked, ate, sometimes urinated in queues and generated 'a staggering amount of trash,' he said. Yet, he added, 'the compression factor' meant more people entered: The roughly 11 square feet that American theme parks plan per person accommodated at least three people in Shanghai.
Millions were enchanted by coos and winks from Spain's lifelike 21-foot-tall baby named Miguelín. They were inspired by architectural flourishes on Britain's pavilion of fiber-optic strands and a United Arab Emirates sand dune in steel.
During the Expo's final week, Chile showed a red, white and blue Phoenix 1 capsule, used in the rescue of its 33 long-trapped miners.
In a U.S. exhibit that initially struggled for its $61 million financing, over seven million watched, and often applauded, a film about a headstrong girl who rallies her neighbors─a tale of individualism that for China may have looked mildly subversive.
As the fair wound down, attendance surged, topping one million on Oct. 16.
To handle the overflow outside the Saudi exhibit during the final week, paramilitary People's Armed Police recruits maintained authority. Throngs pressed chest-to-back along three tracks, each hundreds of yards long, beneath a sign that read in English, mystifyingly: 'Place Sharing and No Challenging.'
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