Once again, the Animalia Thanksgiving Exposition was even bigger than anyone had ever anticipated, but this time it surpassed the Woodstock music festival. Lyre, Las Vegas, and a few of the other nearby towns were nearly overwhelmed by visitors, but fortunately with IAC preorder packages, in all three tiers, making as much money as they were, there was enough hotels/campgrounds to keep the a majority of visitors from overwhelming neighboring towns.
---
For the majority of visitors, Animalia turned out to be very different than first made out to be. The artworks that Animalians made were truly unique. No one expected that reed weaving could create patterns and textures that no one had seen before, for example.
Another thing that took the breath away was the newly constructed St. Frances of Assisi church. It was made to look like a fusion between a building and a natural forest. One of its features was a seeming naturally formed bas relief of St Frances delivering a sermon to Animalians, instead of animals. The church was a good place for Animalians to learn about religion, as well as answer some of their questions about ethics and morality.
The Worldmeet Glade hotel and casino was another thing to be amazed at. Instead of one big casino room, there were a number of smaller rooms that each had a different terrain type, and each one had "natural formations" that appeared to have casino necessities naturally part of them. For example, in the desert room, the slot machine reels appeared to be imbedded into a "natural" rock wall, while in the forest, the tables seemed to be formed from tree stumps.
The living diorama of early American colonial life was very interesting, both for the visitors and for Animalians alike. The Animalians were somewhat glad that early Americans had to fight for survival much like they did before being uplifted.
Another part of the festivities was a Q&A panel for the first Project Phoenix volunteers to be "converted", as well as the scientists behind it. There were many questions about it, as well as a larger group of volunteers for the project after the questions were over.
The highlight of the festivities was a single massive feast, with several towns providing food alongside Lyre so it wouldn't be overburdened. On one wall of the great hall was a showing of the coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. The two uplifted turkeys "donated" by the US government, Jack (after the first turkey pardoned at Thanksgiving by Abraham Lincoln) and Pocahontas (after the person who helped shape early American colonial life) opened the feast with a simple speech about acceptance and friendship. During the feast, Clara announced the upcoming Animalian Christmas Exposition. The main highlight of the ten day event, from the 22nd to New Year's Day, was a concert put on by the newly formed Animalia Songbird Choir, a Christmas Pageant/Nativity Scene and a performance by Mannheim Steamroller on Christmas Eve. Another thing that would be part of it would be displays of how Christmas was celebrated around the world.
All in all, the ATE was an even bigger success than the AHE. It also helped shatter some of the misconceptions about Animalia that some people had. It was also considered a good way of practice for the IAC, which promised to be even bigger.