During lunch at Kaplan's Delicatessen with James Lee and Norman Tan yesterday, they mentioned that more than one million people attended the World Fair, in one day! I had to check this out. For those of you who left your World Fair visit to the last few weeks, (or who like me attended when the crowds were quite modest) here's the story, and a few photos of what one million people in one venue look like!A whopping 1.03 million people visited the Expo last Saturday, nearly doubling previous daily attendance records, shattering Osaka's World Expo reigning daily record of 836,000, and making a few of us wonder just what exactly is the Expo's capacity anyway?
Sunday followed with a measly 750,000, which according to a memo brought to our attention by Shanghai Scrap was actually the projected attendance for Saturday as well. They were only off by, oh, let's say the population of Iceland.
Total attendance for Expo just reached over 65 million, finally breaking that pesky record set by Japan in 1970 and smoothing the way to the ever-important projected 70 million mark. Might make you wonder whether they are easing capacity restrictions in a push to surpass the mark.
One explanation for the surge in attendance is the somewhat short-sighted recent push to attract more visitors following disappointing National Holiday attendance, in which organizers eased ticket restrictions and allowed standard tickets to upgrade to peak-day tickets.
Control was maintained on Saturday by a constant stream of text messages updating visitors on wait times and calling their attention to pavilions with smaller lines. Metro televisions encouraged visitors to avoid attending during peak hours, and six emergency exits were opened in the afternoon to assist with the exiting crowds.
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