It was fitting that Denver’s third Biennial of the Americas festival launched the same day as the Legislative Audit Committee’s report of shrinking crowds attending the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo. A staff of several dozen has spent the past six months finalizing the schedule of events that make up this cross-cultural festival of arts, culture and business in the New World. Nearly 300 musicians, artists, authors, entrepreneurs and academics from 25 countries have assembled in downtown Denver to tug on the threads that bind the Western Hemisphere together.

A brainchild of former Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, now the state’s governor, the Biennial celebrates the interests that unite Americans from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego. “Denver is punching well above its weight today,” said Liberty Global’s CEO Mike Fries, the event’s informal master of ceremonies, during opening remarks on Tuesday. The governor echoed the notion that Denver, in the middle of the country and the continent, has emerged as something of a regional capital.

While most of the Biennial exhibitions and events are free to the public, attendance has proven sparse. The emphasis on smart people, thinking hard about tough issues might not have appeal much beyond local public policy cognoscenti. A discussion about the role of the millennial generation throughout the hemisphere drew a crowd of 500, half of whom appeared to be Millennials employed by the event sponsors. When a panelist noted her generation would choose the next American President, it didn’t sound like good news for Donald Trump.

Separate art exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art on lower 15th Street and the McNichols Building at the Civic Center are showcasing artists from throughout the American continents, featuring arresting works aplenty to contemplate. In Commons Park, organizers are drilling a 100-foot core sample of soils, intending to exchange it for an identical core sample shipped from Mexico City — archaeology as performance art.

Closing the festival on Friday night, a free concert in Civic Center Park features international sensation Bomba Estero on stage with Brazilian dance company Companhia Urbana de Danca. The festival also includes more intimate forums scheduled throughout the week addressing everything from education to global warming. Univision news anchor Leon Krauze, who has the largest daily TV audience in the United States, noted that only 3 percent of Mexican students study English, one of frequent laments about the poor quality of education in Latin America.

Expanding trade and growing existing hemispheric markets is the meat and potatoes that attracted so many high-powered corporate executives to Denver for the week. There was nearly unanimous consensus that the business opportunities are huge, but the existing relationships often weak and underdeveloped. It was the topic discussed Wednesday night at a symposium at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, called “The Case for a New North-South Market Vision,” with Fox Business Channel host Maria Baritromo emceeing.

Jose Manuel Carrera of PEMEX was optimistic, pointing to the recent explosion of energy development in North America, creating an alliance through NAFTA that may soon counter-balance OPEC. “Americans have the natural gas needed in Mexico and Canada, while we and the Canadians have the oil reserves required in the United States. Within a few years our entire hemisphere could be energy independent,” he noted.

The panel agreed that NAFTA has been a huge success for its partners, but after 25 years needs updating. Carrera pointed out that a quarter century ago Mexico largely exported commodities, including petroleum products, but today, oil has shrunk to 8 percent of the country’s economy, while Mexico has emerged as the largest auto manufacturer and producer of flat screen TVs in the hemisphere. The Mexican economy has expanded tenfold since NAFTA was approved.

The panel said that, while the Pacific Rim countries, including those in Central America, appeared to be making the economic changes required, the leviathans of Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela could be slipping into economic decline.

Mark Tercek CEO of the Nature Conservancy, said South America could become the globe’s last major breadbasket. “This wouldn’t require a further exploitation of tropical lands or destruction of natural habitats, but the conversion of vast, existing ranch and grazing properties into agriculture,” he noted. Alicia Lebrija Hirschfeld of the Televisa Foundation linked economic success to creating “learning societies that invest in our talented youth.” While opportunity surely exists, it sounded like many governments in Latin America face major heavy lifting ahead to improve schools, infrastructure and this generation’s biggest challenge — the income inequality that faces all economies.