Expo '88: The Making Of A City

Sun Herald

Sunday May 4, 2008

Tony Moore

World Expo '88 brought more than 18 million people to Brisbane, but what legacy did it leave the city? Tony Moore of brisbanetimes.com.au speaks to the event's visionary, Sir Llew Edwards.

The day was October 30, 1988, and Australian music icons The Seekers were performing The Carnival is Over at the closing ceremony of Expo '88, which opened in Brisbane 20 years ago last week.

While the six-month spectacle that took Brisbane to the world was over, the ripple effect it had on the city is still being felt today.

World Expo '88 occupied 40 hectares of land in the heart of the city along the southern strip of the Brisbane River, transforming the riverbank into an entertainment extravaganza that drew more than 18 million visitors.

But if Brisbane gave the world Expo '88, what legacy did it Expo '88 leave Brisbane?

The man who became the public face of World Expo '88 was its chairman, Sir Llew Edwards, a former state Liberal treasurer who inherited the job of making Expo '88 work after leaving politics.

More than 20 years after Llew Edwards and then premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen accepted the offer from prime minister Malcolm Fraser to host Expo, Sir Llew still sees Expo '88 as a watershed event for the city.

"We captured the spirit of Australia, that was basically dormant and lying there," Sir Llew said last week.

For Sir Llew, World Expo '88 lived, worked and played on the spirit of 4500 Expo volunteers who did everything from offering advice to visitors to manning the Pacific Islands pavilion because the small nations could not afford staff for six months.

According to a tourism study completed by James Cook University in October 1989, most of the 18.5 million visitors came from South-East Queensland (65.4 per cent), with 23.2 per cent from interstate, 6.1 per cent from other places in Queensland and 5.3 per cent from overseas.

In all, Expo contributed a staggering $1.2 billion to the Australian economy.

Looking back, Sir Llew says one major advantage for Brisbane from Expo '88 is rarely discussed, but became a key factor in enabling the city to grow.

"I had a series of meetings with Queensland's trade union movement," he said.

While some meetings left "blood on the floor", Sir Llew said the outcome was security for local workers in return for no strikes that would cripple construction on the Expo site.

"We looked after the workers' safety and the rules and regulations that the unions wanted ... we did not lose one hour in an industrial breakdown in what was the biggest building program held in Brisbane at that stage," he said.

Sir Llew believes Expo '88 gave its host city three main things: outdoor dining, extended drinking hours and rebuilding the Australian spirit.

"The spirit of Australia was rebuilt in Expo. The spirit, the pride, the wonderful traditions that we had. People invited their relatives from all over the world," he said.

"In fact some people tell me that they had guests right through Expo. Romances and marriages were held in Expo."

And it was where Sir Llew met his second wife Jane, who ran Expo's communications area.

Sir Llew said Expo primed the city for the boom that followed.

"I think Expo ... and the Commonwealth Games in 1982 gave us a benchmark where we were judged not as a sleepy northern city, a little bit right of centre where we all went to church on Sundays.

"[Expo] gave us the opportunity for people to drink sensibly, to have outdoor eating and to have a medium where we could have entertainment that was of world standard."

For then Brisbane lord mayor Sallyanne Atkinson, Expo gave Brisbane four specific returns from the $625 million it raised courtesy of a $425 million budget and contributions from corporate and government exhibitors.

First, she said, it encouraged Brisbane residents to go outside.

"Expo took us outside in a way that we hadn't really considered as being possible before," she said.

Ms Atkinson said Expo gave Brisbane back to the river.

"Brisbane had always turned itself away from the river," she said.

"For example, the first apartments at Kangaroo Point and the first apartments at Toowong and St Lucia - they turned themselves away from the river," she said.

"But because Expo '88 was on the river, you had people coming in from Melbourne and seeing the Brisbane River and saying, 'This makes the Yarra look like a creek.'

"At long last we were able to be ourselves."

Eating out was the next big change, she said.

"We had tried very hard to get [outdoor dining] here, but the state health regulation always prohibited it.

"It was 'too dangerous' eating on the footpaths," she scoffed. "Too many flies. But Expo ... had its own set of rules."

Expo tempted Brisbanites into eating later and eating out, she said.

"In my experience, people of my parents' generation who were always eating at 5.30 or 6pm all of a sudden found they were eating at 7pm, or eating out."

Finally, Expo enticed people into the centre of the city.

Today, inner-city Brisbane has a multitude of features luring residents and visitors back to its heart, including the Queensland Art Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art, the bikeways and the gardens.

But before Expo '88 and the transition of South Bank to a leisure precinct, people were moving out of the city to the suburban shopping malls, Ms Atkinson said.

"In the 1960s and 1970s we were developing a lot of those regional shopping centres," she said, "and people were going there".

"Expo brought people back to the city. It gave them a reason."

The man who eventually became the general manager of the South Bank Corporation after Expo '88 was Peter Goldston, an engineer who worked on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric scheme and the Wivenhoe Dam project before joining the Expo '88 team in 1985.

He remembers the advice he received from Expo '86 creative director Ron Woodall to make waiting in the queues an entertaining experience for everyone at Expo '88.

"Some of [Woodall's] actual words are with me still," he said.

"You have to cut 'em up in the aisles because the pavilions are basically boring travelogues. If they were on TV you'd change the channel."

For Mr Goldston, World Expo '88 gave Brisbane two significant gifts.

"The most evident sign is the rapid rise in al fresco dining, but the major community experience was a wish that Expo be successful," he said.

"People remember the happy environment they themselves created on the site. It was a great lesson on what communities can achieve together."

The other gift was the South Bank "beach in the city", which was originally an idea of South Bank master architect Des Brooks.

"Des is a major tourist resort designer ... and is probably in a beach mood most of the time," Mr Goldston said.

"Des' initial concept was slightly larger than the actual construction. When the beach concept was first publicised it generated a tremendous amount of public reaction, including extremely critical comments by some very influential people.

"To my eternal shame and sorrow, I caved in under those critical comments and told Des to reduce the beach size a little. He did, but not very much."

Fast facts about Expo '88

* The Expo '88 theme was "Leisure in the Age of Technology".

* The opening ceremony was broadcast to an estimated television audience of 800 million.

* The largest crowd on a single day was 182,762 (October 29). The lowest was just over 43,000 on August 23.

* Expo '88 had 24,000 accredited staff members. There were more than 4500 volunteers.

* There were more than 20,000 hours of live entertainment at Expo including international stars Bryan Ferry and former Talking Heads guitarist Jerry Harrison.

* There were 175 sculptures around the Expo site. Almost 100 were the Human Factor sculptures by John Truscott and John Underwood, which are now dotted throughout Brisbane.

Name a milestone and win

WHAT has been the most important milestone in the development of Brisbane since Expo '88?

Brisbane Marketing and brisbanetimes.com.au, published by Fairfax Media, owner of The Sun-Herald , wants you to have your say to win a Brisbane Experience package.

In 25 words or less, tell us the most important milestone for Brisbane in the past 20 years. Log on to brisbanetimes.com.au for a list to get you thinking.

Email your entry (with Brisbane Milestones in the subject line) to btcomps@brisbanetimes.com.au. Please include your name, age, address and daytime telephone number.

The best entry will receive an amazing Brisbane Experience, worth $1689, including one night's accommodation at Conrad Treasury, tickets to see the Broncos, a romantic dinner for two and a Story Bridge Adventure Climb.

The winning entry will be published in The Sun-Herald on Sunday, May 11.

For full competition details and the terms and conditions, see brisbanetimes.com.au.

© 2008 Sun Herald

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