While diminished audience numbers and the impossible scale of resources
required to successfully pull off international expositions over the last fifty
years suggests that their days are numbered in the West, the extraordinary
draw of the 2010 Shanghai Expo (73.1 million) demonstrates that the form
is far from dead. The massive resources that flowed into that expo and
the 2020 Dubai Exposition would suggest that top-down economies,
ones where the state functions as the seat of corporate power, can create
an attractive platform for any ambitious nation to seek out a seat at the
table. The future of representation at world’s fairs may thus be more about
‘nationalising the sell’ than representing nation.