Rome presented its bid to host Expo 2030 world fair on Friday (April 21) with hypnotic drone show ‘Humanlands’ over the Colosseum.

The multimedia show of video mapping, with the aim of narrating the eternal evolution of the city and the need to put humanity at the center of the conversation, featured 500 drones that flew over the Colosseum shaping example of Italy’s cultural heritage like Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man’, geometries, abstractions and light games.

Expos are global events that gather millions of visitors in their host cities. The host country for the 2030 edition is expected to be elected in November 2023.

Rome faces competition from Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh which has submitted a bid as part of a push to transform the Kingdom’s economy and diversify away from oil.

South Korea’s Busan and Ukraine’s Odesa have also put themselves forward, according to the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE).

In July 2022, the Korean boy band BTS was named as the official ambassador for the bid by Busan, which lies around 300 km (190 miles) southeast of the capital Seoul.

Saudi Arabia’s gulf neighbour and regional business hub the United Arab Emirates held the Expo 2020 world fair, which was delayed for a year by the COVID-19 pandemic.