Milan Expo 2015 opened on 1 May to a fanfare of ceremony applauding the ambitious theme of the Expo ‘Feeding the Planet: Energy for Life’. Expo brings together 145 countries including 53 national pavilions and, for the first time, ‘clusters’ of smaller countries who might not otherwise have participated, under a series of food-related themes: rice, coffee, cocoa and chocolate, cereals and tubers, spices, fruit and vegetable, Bio-Mediterranean, islands, sea and food and arid zones.
Despite local media concerns about attendance the public and international delegations poured through the gates on the first day and have continued to do so ever since. Most national pavilions are reporting far larger visitor numbers than expected. The UK Pavilion is receiving on average 10,000 visitors a day, double the target number, hitting a record high of over 18,000 visitors on 1 June, bringing the total for the first month to over 300,000.
Pavilions are organised into ‘neighbourhoods’ each with an Expo country officer with responsibility for that area. The UK's neighbourhood includes Poland, Holland, Hungary, the Holy See, Spain, France, Israel, Mexico and Romania. We work together, with the Expo organisers, share information and provide mutual support.
The UK Pavilion, designed by Wolfgang Buttress in collaboration with Dr Martin Bencsik, who is undertaking research to better understand the behaviour of honey bee colonies, explores the journey of the bee as a pollinator under the theme of the UK as a hive of innovation and creativity. The visitor enters the Pavilion through an orchard, then passes through a British wildflower meadow with over 40 plant species which will bloom at different times during the six months of the Expo, before entering into a metal hive constructed with 180,000 individual components. Within the hive the visitor hears and feels the vibrations of 50,000 bees, transmitted via a digital signal from inside a real beehive 870 miles away in Nottingham and powering 1,000 LED lights flickering in line with the bees' vibrations.
It is a highly sensory and immersive experience, foregoing video and audio information, to focus the visitor on the importance of protecting the world's biodiversity and delicate ecosystems to ensure environmental and economic stability. The UK Pavilion is attracting widespread admiration for the powerful message it sends through the fusion of art, science and nature in a single concept - the vital role of pollination to the global food chain and ecosystem.
Milan Expo 2015 provides a unique opportunity for countries to make connections at government, business and public level, working together to address the impact of a growing global population on resources, especially food and water. International delegations, participating in the many seminars and conferences Expo is organising, visit other national pavilions, including the UK's, strengthening existing links and building new ones. There are also great opportunities for businesses at Milan Expo 2015 to engage with international business delegations, thought leaders and buyers through the Grown in Britain Global Business Programme.
Expos are an opportunity also to share cultural and culinary traditions. The UK's famous chef, Anton Mosimann, is providing an exceptional culinary experience to visitors to the UK Pavilion offering a full English breakfast, a delicious afternoon tea and a wide variety of dishes for lunch and dinner. The UK Pavilion is the only place at Expo where you can eat fish and chips and drinks Pimm's. To mark the birth of HRH Princess Charlotte, Mosimann's created a fruit cocktail of apple juice from the Sandringham Estate, elderflower and mint. It's proving a big hit.