1982 World's Fair

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The 1982 World's Fair Logo.

The Sunsphere at the center of the Fair

The 1982 World's Fair was held in Knoxville, Tennessee in the United States. It opened on May 1, 1982 and closed on October 31, 1982 after receiving over 11 million visitors and was widely considered a lackluster event. With the theme of "Energy Turns the World," the fair was built on the grounds of a dilapidated railroad yard next to downtown Knoxville and the University of Tennessee. (In fact, after the fair closed down, trains still ran through at night on the remaining railroad track.)

The Sunsphere, a 266-foot steel tower topped with a five-story bronze globe, was built for the 1982 World's Fair. It still stands and remains a symbol for the city of Knoxville.

The fair, run by the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, was widely considered to be a failure because of the lack of follow-up development and the failure of several local banks, mostly due to unrelated fraudulent activities by the banks' owner, Jake Butcher. In fact, it drew over 11 million visitors, making it one of the most popular world's fairs in U.S. history, and even turned a small profit. The fact that this Fair has been largely forgotten even by residents of East Tennessee was spoofed in an episode of The Simpsons (Bart on the Road), in which Bart, Milhouse, Nelson and Martin take an ill-fated trip to Knoxville under the belief that the World's Fair is still in progress.

Reasons for its failure

The biggest problem associated with the fair was that local hotels and other accommodations were not allowed to directly take reservations for rooms during the fair. All room reservations had to be routed through the Knoxville Visitors' Bureau, Knoxvisit. This operation proved to be incredibly bureaucratic and inefficient--bordering on incompetent--and spawned numerous allegations of favoritism and corruption.

The Knoxvisit monopoly on accommodations-scheduling was finally ended to allow the properties to make reservations on their own; but by this point the fair was winding down and a very poor reputation had been established, which was impossible to be overcome in the time remaining.

The reputation of the fair was further tarnished when its organizer, local businessman and banker Jake Butcher, was arrested on bank fraud charges in late 1982. His banks would collapse and he would declare bankruptcy the following year. Butcher would plead guilty to the fraud charges in 1985.

This was actually the second World's Fair to be held in the state, the first being the Tennessee Centennial Exposition of 1897.

Trivia

The 1982 World's Fair token back.

Seven arcade tokens were minted for the 1982 World's Fair, with seven different arcade games gracing their faces. These tokens were distrubuted at the arcade at the World's Fair itself. The seven games on each of the tokens are Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Qix, Gorf, Scramble, and Donkey Kong. Each of these games were very popular at the time.

In 1992 the city of Knoxville demolished the US Pavillion in a controled blast. The cleared lawn became host to a regular concert series for 8 years. In 2000 the lawn was closed for two years while a convention center was added to space.

In 2004 the World's Fair Park was reopened to general events and concerts, such as Earth Fest and Greek Fest.

See also

• World's fair

External links

• World's Fair retrospective