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Macworld Expo Boston Canceled

Come Back To NYC

There are huge amounts of diehard Macheads on the east coast (Blue States)
I think Apple owes the NY metro area a forum for all the money we spend on
Mac products. Boston didn't work but NY could. I'm sure you could fill the Javitz center with vendors hawking iPod accessories alone. Add Jobs to the mix......
 
I am rooting for Steve to push Macworld for Minneapolis or Chicago for a new Macworld. Honestly I can't ever think of a time when I go to any local coffee shop or Library in the Minneapolis area and NOT see an iBook or Powerbook 🙂 .

Gotta mean local sales are good, and I am sure apple is aware of this 😉
 
It boils down to that IDG made a mistake in moving the east coast MacWorld from NYC to Boston.

1) NYC is a bit more central on the coas than Boston is. This makes it easier for people coming from the South to make it.
2) NYC has a lot more flights into it than Boston does.
3) NYC area has a lot more Mac users than the Boston area does.
--This includes both home users and commercial users.

Basically IDG cited costs in moving, but they were short sighted in how much the attendance would drop therefore cutting revenue. (Pennywise and dollar foolish.)
 
Great! One less event for Apple to make product announcements at. Soon Apple will only have to update products once a year at MWSF. Whoohoo! 😀
 
johnmcboston said:
...
So how is McW SF? Is it like the older shows, or is it slowing down as well?
Click to expand...

It is slowing down as well. I think the attendance is fine, the number of exhibitors increased last year I believe, but the total booth space declined. They went from using two halls to one at Moscone Center. This was OK. It was nice not having to run between halls.

The business has changed in the last ten years. There used to be so many vendors selling small things like cables and mice and special software that just did one kind of video or graphics effect. There used to be many SCSI HD vendors and SCSI boards and such for plugging in to a Mac.

Back then everything was really pricey so those companies could afford a budget for a booth and a trade show. I recall memory at about $600 for 32MB, a 512MB SCSI HD for $550, video cards were thousands of dollars, high end CRTs were thousands of dollars. Now that a 120GB drive goes for $20 on sale and LCD displays are well under $500 and 1GB of memory is about $100 there is no way companies can afford to budget for a trade show.

Also, your standard Mac comes with a lot of things that used to be accessories. PBs have PC card slots, Bluetooth, WiFi, CD burners, DVD burners and more. OS X is far more complete than System 6 or 7 or 8. I miss the small companies hawking some small, clever gadget or software.

As was said above, with 100 or so stores Apple gets far more traffic in their stores in a week than they do at MWSF. Broadband internet allows you to download demos of any software. You can view videos or pictures of most products. It used to be the only way to view many of these was in a booth.
 
johnmcboston said:
Indeed.

McWorld "east" has had a rocky history. When it left Boston, it was a shadow of itself to begin with. They moved because they didn't like having to use two buildings - bu twhenthey moved, they didn't use all the space they had. Half the 2nd building was empty. Half the other building was the 'big guys'. People like MS or Quark or such who took up huge sections of the convention center. Those kind of displays never really made it to NYC.

I went to McWorld NYC a few times. I used to get there at opening, and rush to finish the show in a day. The last time I went, I was done with the whole show in 2 hours. The vendors had just changed so much - and it seemed half the people I wanted to see weren't there any more. Plus, with the internet and downloads and cost of trade shows - Mac World really wasn't the "sale" place any more. Most places didn't have product at the show, or had no discounts - both strong reasons for me to go to Mac World.

Then APple pulled out of the show after a move to Boston. No one could be that stupid. They must have seen the show going down hill - no way they would so casually throw away that much free advertising. I didn't really care anyway - Having Apple at McWorld was a waste of space - face it, you could never get in their booth anyways - and it was full of people who seemed to have not used Mac before. A boon for Apple, but it didn't do much for we veterans.

The first McW Boston was great. Lots of vendors, and time to talk to them about product. Last years McW Boston was, well, dull. I think guitar center was the most fun booth. 60% of the other booths were ipod accessories. I think I was done with my first pass in 2 hours.

I'm sure there are a ton of other reasons for McW changing. It could be as simple as the cost of the space, and vendors relying on the internet to showcase products rather than paying for trade shows. But unless IDG saw McW Boston chaning for the better, I can see why they decided to pull the plug. sigh.

So how is McW SF? Is it like the older shows, or is it slowing down as well?
Click to expand...

Big shows are a problem for smaller vendors and the such. FOSE, the big Fed Government show, in DC is an example. The costs have skyrocketed to a point that smaller vendors were/are being pushed out. Add to that it was a "freebie" fest for anyone with a government ID to get a beanie, a ruler, or what ever freebie was being given out.

When I last was a part of FOSE back in the late 90's; there was great talk from the "local" arms of companies like Cisco, M$, HP, and the such - that FOSE was a waste of ever growing limited resources.

In the end it is all about the best way to spend limited dollars. Apple right now is in a position to call for a press event, where they are the sole attention.

My experience in the photography sector seems to show that September is the time to hit resellers with the Holiday buying spree. Hence we had PMA West that show cased much of what will be offered this Holiday season. June/July/August is too early for many "smaller" retailers to make buying decisions for the Holidays.
 
NY

I still liked the New York expo, it was SO FUN! I'm very happy I went to the MacWorld Creative Pro Expo in 2003, it was a great experience. I hope they bring the New York show back, that was real fun. Oh well maybe one day I can go to the MWSF expo 😀
 
broken_keyboard said:
There's still too many events. MacWorld San Fran and WWDC are enough, Paris is not needed.
Click to expand...

I don't agree, I think one Pro conference and two consumer conferences each year is pretty much spot on. I would like to see them move the consumer one from Paris to somewhere else, maybe ooo.... Sydney?

Macworld Sydney in September, before it gets too hot would be pretty cool.

Didn't there used to be a Tokyo show?
 
Chundles said:
Didn't there used to be a Tokyo show?
Click to expand...

Yeah they had a ton of things there at the 2002 MacWorld Tokyo. Always more people attended the Tokyo show than even the San Francisco one. Steve even gave a Key note at the 2002 in Tokyo I think, something like over 180,000 people attended it.

Brian
 
Eastend said:
Yeah they had a ton of things there at the 2002 MacWorld Tokyo.
Click to expand...
It's fun to look back at the product introductions from Macworld Tokyo 2002:

* iMac prices raised to $1399, $1599, and $1799

* 23-inch Cinema HD Display for $3499

* Bluetooth support in Mac OS X

* 5GB iPod for $399

* 10GB iPod for $499

* iPod engraving for $49
 
Bear said:
It boils down to that IDG made a mistake in moving the east coast MacWorld from NYC to Boston.

1) NYC is a bit more central on the coas than Boston is. This makes it easier for people coming from the South to make it.
2) NYC has a lot more flights into it than Boston does.
3) NYC area has a lot more Mac users than the Boston area does.
--This includes both home users and commercial users.
Click to expand...

Not a single one of your reasons is accurate, here's the rebuttal:

1) Boston - as far as the crow flies - is really no further ... people flying from the South (like me) actually pay less for a flight to Boston because of Airport fees.

2) It really doesn't matter if there are more flights ... there are enough flights to Boston to make this a non issue

3) Percentage wise / per capita I think you'd find it hard to back up your assumption that there are more Mac Users. I might assume there are MORE IMPORTANT people (such as MIT Artificial Intelligence) that use Macs in Boston.

If Apple had come to Boston, it might be an enormous show. But Apple looked at this as an easy way out to save money.
 
Forget money.

The reason they don't want to do more than 3 of these a year is because there isn't THAT much to tell us. I mean, after WWDC, how much is there to tell us 2 months later? Want a breakthrough new product? They take a long time to develop, and if they're not ready for WWDC, then that gives them 6 months to get it out the door. In fact, 2 keynotes (one every 6 months or so) per year seems like plenty to me. I'd rather not go through dud keynotes, or no keynotes at certain events because it looks bad.

So for this reason, I can see MW Paris disappearing. They only need 2 SteveNotes per year, and they should be spaced out by around 6 months. They can't miss WWDC because it's for developers and so it's good for them, so if they're going to have 2 per year, it'll be MWSF in January, and WWDC in June.
 
I've never been to an expo but would like to. Cancel Paris, add Atlanta. There are Apple guys/gals down here ya know 🙂
 
Abstract said:
Forget money.

The reason they don't want to do more than 3 of these a year is because there isn't THAT much to tell us. ...
Click to expand...

OK, here's a question. How many people attend the tutorials and such? Last McW Bosotn ones seemed so basic I didn't bother.
 
broken_keyboard said:
There's still too many events. MacWorld San Fran and WWDC are enough, Paris is not needed.
Click to expand...
Paris is quite needed for European Mac users. Not everyone can afford to fly across the ocean to see things.
 
digitalbiker said:
Great! One less event for Apple to make product announcements at. Soon Apple will only have to update products once a year at MWSF. Whoohoo! 😀
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, so I'm going to treat your comment as serious for a moment.

If you haven't noticed, Apple does a lot of product updates these days not associated with a show. Some without even a press conference. Apple still needs to refres products throughout the year for various reasons.

Less shows is not necessarily a good thing. I know I've gone to MacWorld to see products and play with them and get quesitons answered.
 
Underground expo?

Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there was some sort of subversive underground expo, attended by die-hard Mac fans? They could kidnap vendors from other Mac-related expos & force them to make speeches & show off product...

Alright, that's a crazy idea, what can I say? too much caffeine.
 
Bear said:
Paris is quite needed for European Mac users. Not everyone can afford to fly across the ocean to see things.
Click to expand...

I'm just sick of having to stay up till 2 or 3am to see anything happen... 😉
 
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