> World's fairs seem to have tapered off after the 40s. Presumably the adoption of television?
I was just at the Biennale di Venezia [1]. It, like Art Basel, was well attended.
These art-oriented fairs may have supplanted science and technology. (It coïncides with the 1970s and 80s’ anti-intellectualism in America.) On the other hand, science and technology discussion is far more realistic today, at the average dinner table, than it was in the 1950s.
I visited Expo 2005 in Nagoya, and can thoroughly recommend attending if you can, it was a rather surreal but fascinating experience.
Amidst a lot of glitzy building-size displays by various Japanese household names and wealthy countries, there was a rather modest Asian & African pavilion for all the countries too poor to afford their own. Inside was Laos's little booth, which could have been straight out of a high school science fair, with a couple of posters and some wooden baskets. Nevertheless, they were doing a roaring trade by selling little flasks of lao lao, the local rice "whisky", for around 300 yen. Three cheers to alcohol, the universal language!
World's fairs seem to have tapered off after the 40s. Presumably the adoption of television? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world%27s_fairs#1940...
The last world's fair held in the US was the 1984 Louisiana World Exhibition. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Louisiana_World_Exposit...