The writing is skewed and brilliant (scientific expositions and shopping sprees stand in for declarations of love).

NEWYORKER: Good Girl (Gentille)

The Shanghai government partnered with the Bureau International des Expositions to build a massive 35, 000sqm World Expo Museum.

BBC: Shanghai after the World Expo

World Water Day 2004: public outreach programme, secondary school essay competition, radio programme, expositions with literature, hydrologic models, etc.

UNESCO: Trinidad y Tobago: Actividades Bienios Anteriores

When it comes to hotels, beware of rate spikes in major cities during trade shows, conventions or expositions this autumn.

BBC: Business travel outlook for autumn

Comdex was owned by what later became known as the Interface Group, a company that produced conferences and expositions around the world.

NEWYORKER: The Brass Ring

Now Gary Goodman, of the International Association of Fairs and Expositions, points out that Madison Avenue is paying a lot more attention to the audiences that fairs draw in.

ECONOMIST: State fairs

At the northwest end of the platform is the impossible-to-miss, black-and-white, sumptuous Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe (Palace of Culture), famous for hosting concerts, art expositions and other events.

BBC: The cheapest sightseeing tour in the world

"We have approximately 1, 200 state, regional and county agricultural fairs as members and none of my staff is aware of a large-egg competition at any of them, " says James Tucker, chief executive of the International Association of Fairs and Expositions in Springfield, Mo.

WSJ: Big Chocolate Eggs May Be Big, but Big Hen's Eggs Not So Much