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. 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 a $46 million debt left with the city of Knoxville. 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 ($57), but short of the projected $5 million surplus. [1]

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

1 Difficulties with the Fair
2 Trivia
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Difficulties with the Fair

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. Room reservations for everything from hotels to houseboats sold in a package with fair admission tickets through the first 11 days of the fair were handled by a central bureau, Knoxvisit, but financial and administrative troubles pushed reservations to be taken over by PLM[2], which itself filed for bankruptcy[3] and was mired in its own difficulties[4].

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. [5]

[edit] Trivia

The 1982 World's Fair token back.

Seven arcade tokens were minted for the 1982 World's Fair, each with a different arcade game gracing its face. 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 controlled 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 the space.
The Simpsons 1993 episode Cape Feare shows Homer smoking a Knoxville World's Fair cigar in the movie theatre (On the Season 5 audio commentary for this episode, showrunner Al Jean comments that 1982 was a terrible world's fair).
The 1982 World's Fair was spoofed in an episode of The Simpsons entitled "Bart on the Road." In the episode, Bart, Milhouse, Nelson and Martin take a trip to Knoxville under the belief that the World's Fair is still in progress. They arrive at the site of the World's Fair to find the Sunsphere now being used as a storage for wigs. Subsequently, Nelson manages to knock it over by throwing a rock at it.
In 2004, the World's Fair Park was reopened to general events and concerts, such as Earth Fest and Greek Fest.