Expo Now Aiming at 60,000,000

MONTRÉAL (CP) - After 16 days of Expo '67, officials of Canada's world fair looked back on their operation today and found it more successful than anyone expected.

Friday night the top bosses of the big fair met members of the press corps and Andrew G. Kniewasser, general manager, told them: "We are in very good shape."

GREATER SUCCESS

"It's clear to everyone that we have a greater success on our hands than even the most courageous of us thought," he said.

The success was a total of more than 3,600,000 visitors since the gates opened to the public April 28. So far, 1,000,000 more have come to the fair than had been predicted.

Now fair officials are ready to scrap the original estimate of 35,000,000 visits to the fair during its six-month term and are shooting for 60,000,000.

But Expo's success has brought its own problems, including movement of huge crowds of people, feeding them and providing sanitary facilities.

Philippe de Gaspe Beaubien, director of operations and in effect mayor of the $650,000,000 Expo city spread over three main sites in the St. Lawrence River and covering an area of 1,000 acres, said one of the fair's main problems is feeding its visitors.

ENLARGE FACILITIES

With the capacity to feed 275,000 a day, Expo now hopes to enlarge its facilities to feed more than 300,000.

"What we have in mind is a large family restaurant, with meal prices under $2 and seating 1,000 on St. Helen's Island," Mr. Beaubien said.

"We are also thinking of having food prepared in Montréal and bring it to the site where it can warmed up."

By 10 p.m. Friday night, 162,321 had come through the turnstiles during the day, or a cumulative total since April 27 of 3,736,171.

This means that with a population of 2,500,000 in Greater Montréal, every Montréaler on average has been to the fair at least once.

- End of article. Copyright by the Canadian Press, May 13, 1967. All rights reserved.