The Fair, Leisure: What Can The Matter Be?

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THE FAIR

From start to finish, the New York World's Fair was planned for profit. Remembering the ocean of red ink that engulfed New York's 1939-40 World of Tomorrow, the World's Fair of 1964-65 Corp. schemed and ballyhooed to make sure that the billion-dollar bazaar would not only repay every last penny it cost, but also would even show a $99 million surplus. New York City hotels, stores and restaurants also counted confidently on record profits from hordes of tourists attracted by the extravaganza in Flushing Meadow. By last week, well into the second half of its first season, it was clear that the fair, while no fizzle, was no bonanza either.

An ever-increasing number of unhappy exhibitors is singing a blues version of an English song:

Oh dear, what can the matter be? Johnny's not out at the Fair.

Though 22 million people to date have clicked through the turnstiles, attendance is more than 20% below the 28 million that fair officials counted on during the period. And, 49% of all fair visitors have come from the New York metropolitan area.

Slow Shows. Most fair-minded patrons allow that the trip on the whole is worthwhile—but many also find plenty to criticize. The grounds cover 646 acres, and it is a tiring trudge from exhibit to exhibit. Visitors who have their minds set on seeing the main attractions spend a good part of a day standing in queues. Transportation is expensive: it costs $3 just to board a Greyhound escorter—if you can find one. The hardest thing of all to track down is a cool soft drink, and even that entails waiting in line.

Understandably, the loudest complaints come from the handful of concessionaires who have been forced to close, mostly with heavy losses. The show business sector has been hardest hit. Mike Todd Jr.'s America Be Seated closed shortly after the fair opened. Another notable dropout was Wonder World, a glossy musical-extravaganza with a cast of 250 that at times was bigger than its audiences. The Texas pavilion's lavish To Broadway with Love and Dick Button's Ice-Travaganza also folded. The Teatro Espanol's guitarists and flamenco dancers would be a hit in Manhattan; at the fair, business is so slow that the Spanish pavilion has slashed admission from $3 to a ridiculously low $1.

Show business entrepreneurs complain bitterly that Fair Corp. President Robert Moses seems indifferent to their problems, as when he said recently: "The collapse of a few amusement ventures has been grossly exaggerated." Their backers, who lost some $7,000,000, were not so philosophical. Said one showman: "How does Moses gauge the success of the fair? Well, he's paying off the bondholders, but at our expense. They won't help us, and they won't let us help ourselves."