A colleague from the Swiss Pavilion recently described Milan Expo 2015 as similar to living in a shared student household, where everyone needs to make friends because you never know when you might need to borrow something from the Hungarians or ask the Polish to turn the music down (usually unsuccessfully).
Personally, I think it’s more like Big Brother on an international scale. You find yourself taking part in joint activities, you can’t really get away from each other, there’s a popularity competition with the public, we’re under the media spotlight and we’re counting down to the end of the show. Of course, we don’t get to vote anyone off.
We’ve had some impressive visitors over the last few months, including artists and musicians, architects and designers and many VIP’s: the Ruler of Dubai, two Iranian Ministers, the Japanese Prime Minister’s family, two EU Commissioners, the Hungarian Labour Minister, a Qatari Princess and many business delegations. In particular the Chinese are very keen to send delegations to the UK Pavilion. We’re on their ‘must see list’ as we have translated all our signage and have Chinese speaking guides.
We’re now celebrating our 1 millionth visitor at the UK Pavilion (above) – an impressive milestone only three months into Expo 2015 and a real testament to the amazing design, story and visitor offer of the UK Pavilion. The vast majority of comments by the public have been really positive, such as ‘a good vibe in the hive’ (I think that was an American), ‘the UK Pavilion is beautiful and peaceful’ and ‘the explanation really moved me’. The words impressive, beautiful, amazing and thought provoking occur again and again.
We’ve also demonstrated strong partnership activity, across HM Government, working together on a wide range of UK Pavilion events. These have recently covered issues such as;
- The Government Equalities Office promoting the importance of women-led businesses to global growth as part of the ‘Women for Expo’ weeks.
- A Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs led conference on the importance of pollinators, including a public presentation and debate with Dr Martin Bencsik and Wolfgang Buttress, explaining the science and creative inspiration behind the UK Pavilion – hosted and broadcast by the BBC.
- A recent MET Office event exploring the links between weather, climate, food security and malnutrition globally.
With over 145 countries represented, Expo 2015 is sometimes the world in miniature, acting on and reflecting things happening globally. Recently, Sara Everett the UK Pavilion Director and I represented the UK at a remembrance service organised by the Italian hosts with speakers from Tunisia, France and Kuwait to commemorate the victims of recent terrorist attacks. The event was attended by representatives from many pavilions and there was a real sense of the international community brought together in genuine sympathy.
Overall it’s been an amazing and enjoyable experience, despite the long hours and occasional surreal experiences – ‘no madam I’ve no idea why there is an enormous inflatable blue pig outside the UK Pavilion, I’m sure it will move on shortly’. The UK Pavilion staff members also continue to impress me with their interest, knowledge and dedication. I can only recommend visiting Expo 2015 and seeing it for yourself – you will be impressed, I guarantee it.