Expo awaits milestone

MONTRÉAL (CP) - Expo 67, with considerably more than 9,000,000 visits under its belt, is getting ready to hail the 10,000,000th.

With warm, sunny weather in the works for the entire weekend, Expo expects to reach that milestone Monday.

The person who happens to make Expo's 10,000,000th visit will be greeted at the fairgrounds by a top official of the exhibition, and will be awarded a free air trip to any of a group of Canadian cities.

There is also a special scroll presented, plus a ribbon and a selection of Expo souvenirs.

The fair is about 4,000,000 visits ahead of the total that had been forecast for this stage in its career.

Today is United Nations Day at the fair. Some of the originally scheduled luster of the day will have disappeared with the decision against attendance by U Thant, the UN Secretary-General.

However, a holiday atmosphere prevails at the site, with temperatures under a brilliant sun hitting 79 on Friday and expected to go at least that high through the weekend.

The Friday crowds came in their droves, with 210,848 turning up at the St. Lawrence River site as of 12 midnight. Total attendance at that time, since the fair's formal inauguration April 27, was 9,203,537.

Expo had other Friday visitors -- shad flies.

The large-winged nuisances turned up in limited numbers at the exhibition's administration building. There were few on the main section of the site.

- End of article. Copyright by the Canadian Press, June 3, 1967. All rights reserved.