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Crowds reign at city's 14th auto show

Crowds reign at city's 14th auto show

Write: Nantale [2011-05-20]
Home >> Shanghai >> Society

Crowds reign at city's 14th auto show

  • Source: Global Times
  • [12:17 April 25 2011]
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By Miranda Shek

Organizers of the 14th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition transferred few of the lessons learnt from the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai over to the show featuring the hottest new rides, according to visitors, who described the weekend experience as chaotic as the worst of times of the six-month event last year.

Despite police presence at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, scalpers were transparently preoccupied profiting 700-plus yuan ($108) per sale by hawking the 80-yuan ($12) entry tickets - while visitors were shoved around 15 exhibition halls without ample washroom facilities in uncomfortably stagnant room temperatures of 30 C.

The help of 300 volunteers did little to keep the some 283,000 weekend visitors orderly at the show, where the most restless of the masses hoarded prime space near the likes of Ferrari, Porsche and Mercedez-Benz - a reminder of the unruly queues visitors experienced at the Expo.

"I was pushed around and saw nothing, but a sea of faces rushing at me," David Mallard, a visitor from the US, told the Global Times Sunday. "The auto show in Detroit was much better organized."

Visitor Nin Yibin of Hangzhou expressed similar frustrations, saying that he was forced to fight through swarms of people for hours just to get a few stolen glimpses.

"It was ridiculous," he told the Global Times Sunday.

Lengthy waits to use the washrooms and overpriced refreshments topped the list of other complaints heard from visitors on the weekend.

"The cheapest lunch box I could get cost me 19 yuan ($3)," a visitor surnamed Li, told the Global Times Sunday. "After I finally got one, I had to wait another half an hour to get it warmed."

But for all the commotion, visitors like Mei Hongmin from Anhui Province admitted that the hassle was well worth the chance to see the beauties.

"I came here for the concept cars, the limited edition muscle cars - and, of course, the pretty models," he told the Global Times Sunday.

According to Yao Yingliang, a press officer with the organizer, everything was running smoothly Sunday - even with 8,000 fewer people than organizers had anticipated attending over the weekend.

"The show has been a hit," he told the Global Times Sunday. "It's been real busy, but we've been keeping everything under control with the help of police and volunteers."

An unused weekend ticket can still get individuals into the show this week without having to purchase a new pass; the show wraps up Thursday.