Spend a bit of time poking your head into some of the 170-or-so Expo 2010 pavilions, and a few things become clear right away: few, if any of the national pavilions have programming that lives up to their architecture (hello, Russia); people are waiting hours in line to view eight minute videos that are destined…
All posts in Expo 2010
Maybe people are visiting Expo 2010 (World’s Fair), after all [UPDATED]
Below, a photo of the ticket lines, near gate 6, at Expo 2010 just after 4:00 yesterday. This was but one line; there were roughly twenty of equivalent length stretched down the ticket counters. Only one week earlier, at roughly the same time, there were no lines, and only two ticket windows open for business.…
The Gun Almost Smokes, Pt. II: Potentially serious conflicts of interest at the USA Expo 2010 pavilion.
For more than a year, the USA pavilion at Expo 2010 has been shrouded in inexplicable secrecy. To this day, for example, the State Department won’t reveal the process by which Shanghai Expo 2010, Inc [SE 2010] – the non-profit it authorized to design, fund, build and manage the US pavilion – was selected; who…
Shanghai Scrap’s Simple Guide to Expo 2010: Go After Dark.
Early yesterday afternoon I found my way down to the Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) site for what was supposed to be a ninety-minute visit, at most. But when I arrived the grounds were so empty (under 100,000 visitors yesterday), and the weather was so good, that I found myself spending the remainder of the day,…
We Are Not Trying: the inexplicably weird Hungarian pavilion @ Expo 2010 (World’s Fair)
Say you’re a mid-sized Eastern European country without much of a public image in China. More or less suddenly, in 2006, you receive an invitation from Premier Wen Jiabao, inviting you to attend Expo 2010, the biggest and most expensive World’s Fair in history. You accept, of course – why wouldn’t you want to take…
How did the US manage to spend $61 million on an Expo 2010 pavilion? IRS filings offer some insights.
As regular readers know, for more than a year I’ve asked the USA pavilion at Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) and the State Department to provide me with a precise accounting of how they’re spending the US$61 million that they’ve raised from private corporations in the name of the United States of America. And, for more…
How could this happen? A Reporter’s Guide to the USA Pavilion Debacle at Expo 2010.
Over the last two days I’ve received a sudden and unusually large number of emails and phone calls related to the USA pavilion at Expo 2010. Combined with the growing number of negative and caustic reviews of the structure, I’m sensing that more than a few people are looking for an explanation as to how…
At the Atlantic: China Rules the World at Expo 2010
The Atlantic has just posted my essay and slide-show, ‘China Rules the World at Expo 2010‘ to its site. Of the many things that I’ve written over the last year about the Expo, this might be my favorite. The essay goes into the history of Expos, and where Shanghai’s fits into that, as well as…
Expo 2010 has a little bit of everything, but it sure doesn’t have one of these.
I was working up an article on Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) a few weeks ago when – by accident – I came across (and then purchased) this vintage postcard showing the Vatican City pavilion from the 1964/65 New York City World’s Fair. And the back side (click to enlarge for text). No surprise, despite signs…
Time out from Expo 2010 for some Cuttlefish Cheese Bread
We’re going to briefly interrupt Shanghai Scrap’s non-stop Expo 2010 coverage to announce that – based upon what we just had for breakfast – Starbucks is doomed. For those who don’t follow the venerable coffee company, it’s been faltering for several years now, largely due to over-expansion into questionable markets in the US (though that…