Expo empties out in recent days
- Source: Global Times
- [08:25 September 02 2010]
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It was also a quiet first at the Expo Performance Center, where a fifth of the over 2,000 tickets available to the evening concert staged by performers from tiny Liechtenstein - in celebration of their national pavilion day at the park Wednesday - remained on offer around 2 pm Wednesday.
"Usually, all these tickets are claimed by visitors before noontime," Xu Yuanyuan, an Expo volunteer, told the Global Times Wednesday. "We'll wait here until we run out, or when the show begins at 7:30 pm."
Vendors inside the park Wednesday, meanwhile, were keeping their fingers crossed for more visitors the next day, as less crowds and rainy weather have been hurting business.
"We've barely had any customers these days," a vendor selling refreshments inside the park told the Global Times Wednesday. "We hope this situation won't last long."
As of Wednesday, the park had received some 47.5 million visitors since opening.
Organizers are hoping to exceed the record-high of 64.2 million visitors set by the Expo held in Osaka, Japan some 40 years ago.
Meanwhile, 18 million sold Expo tickets remain unused. If all previous purchasers go through with the trip, the city would see a historic 65 million-plus visitors at its Expo.
Organizers previously projected that 70 million visitors would drop in on the event before the curtain falls at the end of next month.
