As I was watching this year’s musical, “Meet Me in St. Louis,” I began to think more about World’s fairs, and how no one ever talks about them anymore. They used to portray such a grand image when thought about, but now, people probably don’t even know they still exist.

In the early and mid 20th century, the World’s Fair represented a vivid dream to showcase new ideas, innovations and inventions in order to help the world to evolve. Nowadays, however, the World’s Fair has become an excuse to brainstorm solutions for all of the problems humanity has caused. It has become less of a chance for young people to learn about the limitless opportunities of technology, and more of a chance for scientists to say “hold up, we need to fix all of these environmental mistakes we have made so we can save the planet!” (I’m using the theme of the 2015 World’s Fair, Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life, as an example here.) On top of that, the World’s Fairs are seriously overlooked nowadays, probably due to our advanced technology. If someone has a interesting new idea, you can just read all about it on your smartphone. In the 1960’s people had a better reason to make a big deal out of these fairs, because that technology didn’t exist yet.

The revival of Expositions is something we should be working towards. Not only do they spread knowledge and new, creative concepts, but they also spread culture, which is something that seems to lack importance these days. There is a reason why it’s called the World’s Fair. Learning about different perspectives and people is a huge part of the experience.

World’s Fairs are proven to be effective, as shown throughout history. Some of our best inventions and ideas were debuted for the first time at World’s Fairs. The telephone, the x-ray machine, the modern elevator, the picturephone (video chatting), touchscreens, the ferris wheel, the electrical outlet, bubble gum and the diesel engine are all examples of technologies that were first showcased for the public at world’s fairs, just to name a few. So much of our modern life has been influenced by ideas produced by Expositions of the past.

How can we revive World’s Fairs? One problem with them now is their cost. It takes a lot of money to run them, but they don’t bring in any money. The point of them is not to make as much money as possible, but to present new concepts and ideas. Unfortunately, this can hurt the hosting country, causing some reluctance when faced with the very idea of hosting. However, events such as the Olympic Games do bring in money. Combining the Olympics with World’s Fairs may seem unrealistic, but it would be beneficial. The host country could reuse some of the buildings in the Olympics for the World’s fair, therefore decreasing the cost of preparation. The Olympics would be providing an income to the country, which could also help to cover the cost of the World’s Fair. This would also help get more people out to World’s Fairs because there would already be a large turnout for the Games, so it would be more convenient for people to go to the Fair.

Getting people from different sides of the earth together has proven to rapidly turn our society into the amazing modern life that we have now. Bringing athletics, science and creativity together will help to remind people of the cultural phenomena that is the World’s Fair.