Earlier activities to mark the change included a festival on 26 February 1902 attended by emperor Thành Thái and the governor general Paul Doumer[2] and the opening of the Paul Doumer (now Long Biên) Bridge.

[3] The site of the fair was the racecourse established in the early 1890s,[3] and its main building was the Grand Palais de l'Exposition (Vietnamese: Nhà Đấu xảo) designed by Adolphe Bussy.

[4] The preparation for the fair, especially the construction of the exhibition palace, left Hanoi's budget in deficit for a decade.

Later, air raids at the end of World War II completely destroyed the building.

The fair showed products from France and her colonies, and from other territories in Southeast Asia: , Burma,[2][5] Ceylon, China, Dutch Indies, Formosa (now Taiwan), French Indo-China, India, Japan, Korea,[5] Malaysia, Malacca, the Philippines, Siam and Singapore.