Having attended the New Orleans World's Fair, I was also surprised to see it got so little press. But the key takeaway from that event is that it was awful. Com

Having attended the New Orleans World's Fair, I was also surprised to see it got so little press. But the key takeaway from that event is that it was awful. Compared to other fairs, '84 in New Orleans was pitiful. The cable car across the river was pointless and took you to a big nothing on the other side. The monorail was also sad and boring, and both were dismantled. Some of the faux architecture was preserved and used at Harvey's casino, I believe, in Reno -- but there was nothing memorable being shown in New Orleans. The most exciting thing I remember is a futuristic round phone booth with seats where you could have a (free) long distance phone call on a speakerphone. New Orleans is the only world's fair in history to lose money and close early! It certainly couldn't compare with New York or Paris or San Francisco. As a big fan of world's fairs and having visited many sites, I think what killed them is Disney. The easy, year round availability of Epcot (which opened 2 years prior) was the final nail in the coffin for world's fairs in this country.