[BohrMe]

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apple users are FANATICS who support anything apple

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This is true.

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While there are several here who might agree with you, I do not. Such blatant generalizations about users of the Mac platform fuel many of the unnecessary flame wars between Windows (or another OS) and Mac users. Those fights do nothing to show how much better OS X is compared to the other OS. It fosters a lemming-type mentality instead of one that portrays a Mac user as a critically thinking, intelligent computer user.
The Mac platform is a multi-layer operating environment that should inspire one to dig deeper into the OS to find those seemingly hidden features that make using a computer even more of a joy.

[cseeman]

Hi Bohr,
You actually do hit on a key point. (I do hope folks are still reading this thread.
Apple is more heavily than ever into trade shows. They are NOT specific to Apple fanatics though. "Hi end" announcements happen at shows like NAB. Apple has a big booth at DV Expo West and East. They're at IBC. They're looking to impress those who have professional equipment demands but may not attend a Mac specific trade show.
Trade shows put on by a specific "manufacturer" are rare. Sony may have booths at many consumer and professional trade shows but there's no Sony Expo for example.
Mac specific trade shows still have key marketing value though. Mac has an ever expanding product line and in every branch has had business opportunites for 3rd party products, whether Mac software or iPod accesseries. It no longer makes marketing sense for Apple to save big hardware (towers) or software (Final Cut, Motion, etc) announcements for their own shows for many reasons. Reaching the small number of heavy spending Mac fanatics doesn't serve to reach the broader professional markets like video and audio.
On the other hand, Apple specific shows are a great way for Apple to support consumer outreach as well as small businesses like mine. NYC is an excellent location for this kind of show and it's what is typically found at the Javitz center. There's a need for an East cost show and NYC really is the best location for supporting the largest numbers of customers like me and the 3rd party developers whose products are based on Apple integration. The market sized can't be matched.
BTW, Apple has a huge booth at DVExpo East at the Javitz Center just one week after the old Boston/NYC shows were. I get all the details I want about Final Cut Studio, the latest Apple Desktop features etc. This year we'll also have NAB Post East (so trade shows are dying????) which I'm sure Apple will have a significant booth. What we don't get in NYC is the business related, consumer related 3rd party products.
I think a big NYC Apple show is important. I just think the parties involved need to rethink the marketing strategy of such a show. It may have little effect on Apple sales but it's importance to small business consumers and 3rd party developers is critical. We don't need a show for fanatics. We don't need a show showing off what Apple is already showing off at other high end NYC trade shows in a big way. We need a show for the "other stuff." It would be a good business decision on Apple's part to do a NYC show.

[Moof_in_Charge]

Stamp a Big "Duh" on the event coordinator's forehead! What I don't understand is, why on earth are they canceling it instead of moving it back to New York? I wonder if an ego here or an ego "there" is making this impossible.
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif <----- Look Ma, I just ate a whole frog all by myself!

[jdb8167]

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why on earth are they canceling it instead of moving it back to New York?

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A trade show in NYC is very expensive. If Apple, Adobe, Intuit, Quark and Microsoft don't intend on showing up, then probably they can't afford to put it on.

[Moof_in_Charge]

I know trade shows in NYC are expensive...(dont make me stamp a duh on your forehead /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif )
As I recall Apple declined to go to Boston. Because of this, some other heavy hitters decided not to go either... it had a trickle down effect. Now if they get Apple to participate in NYC then you will peak enough vendors' interested to create a snowball effect. What many people seem to forget is that the anticipation of new products is such a crowd grabber that people attend just to see some new stuff from Apple not to mention the extra bonus on sitting on one of Jobs's shows.
Look, lets face it... for good or Bad...Apple is the draw and it brings people in.... so the question is.. Would you rather sell your product to 10 people with a net selling-cost of $20 (Boston) or to 100 people with a net selling-cost of $40? I know Javits is expensive and most times unjustifiably so but you also need to realize, New York (for better or worse) is the world's capital and the publicity alone is well worth the extra cost.
This is unfair to small developers but such is life... than again, there is nothing wrong with getting exposed to 20-40k people... even if you are a tiny booth on the floor!
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif <--- Looks like my Grandpa Willy walking 40 miles to school in bare feet back in the days!

[Peter Cohen]

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What I don't understand is, why on earth are they canceling it instead of moving it back to New York?

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Still having trouble understanding this? Here's a handful of good reasons off the top of my head:
A) It's HELLISHLY expensive to put on a trade show at the Javits Center. It was before 9/11 and was extraordinarily MORE so afterwards, thanks to the insurance that show companies are required to pay. In fact, it's more just about everywhere to put on a trade show, thanks to insurance -- but when you're a short cab ride away from Ground Zero, you pay through the teeth.
B) Vendors had been complaining about having to do two shows for years -- well before Macworld Expo moved out of Boston, in fact. Macworld Expo was one of the very few trade shows open to the general public that happened more than once a year.
C) Moving the venue back to New York City wouldn't necessarily have brought Apple back to the show. Apple had their excuse to scale back their presence in 2003, after IDG World Expo announced the Boston move -- no Steve Jobs keynote that year (Greg Joswiak did a feature presentation, instead), and to not show up in 2004 or 2005 all together. With the main attraction scaling back its presence in 2003, many companies pulled up stakes and used that as their excuse not to come, and never returned.
D) Exhibiting at trade shows is not cheap. Exhibiting at trade shows is New York is even worse.
E) Drayage (freight costs), union fees, the cost of putting up and moving personnel and other miscellaneous charges increased when the show moved from Boston to New York.
F) The Javits Center is a lousy location for a show. All the hotels (outside of the Quality Inn motel up the street from the Javits) are midtown locations, in and around Times Square. That means a ride on the slow shuttle buses, that only run on limited schedules, or a cab ride. Getting there in the morning wasn't a problem, but getting back at night was hell, because the show let out at around the same time the cab companies were changing shifts. There was a constant river of yellow cabs driving past the Javits, all with their OFF DUTY lights on.
G) That likewise increased the cost for vendors to participate, because instead of just putting up employees at local hotels and having them walk (like they could do this year in Boston, or can do in San Francisco pretty easily), they'd have to pay transportation costs.
H) All of those increased costs, and less return to show for it. In the mid-90s, something happened: Many companies stopped selling product at shows. They maximized their booth space for getting out the marketing message. They stopped having deals for showgoers. And showgoers stopped needing deals, because by the late 90s, most of them were on the Internet, where they could compare the costs of goods and get the best deals. And as a result, exhibitors had a harder and harder time justifying their trade show costs, because they couldn't bury the costs in the returns on the products they sold. Instead, it became yet another line item in their marketing budget, the same as buying print ad space or banner ads on an Internet site.
I) The point has already been made -- repeatedly -- that there has been a sea change in the trade show market. Part of it is was certainly the dot com implosion; part of it has been the increased use of the Internet as an information retrieval tool. While I agree with people that face-to-face interaction with vendors can't be replaced or substituted, it's clearly enough for many people to simply get their information online instead of taking a day or week off from work. Before I worked for Macworld I was in Mac IT, and even then (the late 90s), I was having difficulty justifying to my bosses taking time off from work to go to Macworld Expo -- today it'd be impossible.
There I go, a third of the way through the alphabet. This just off the top of my head, a few reasons I can think of why moving Macworld back to New York instead of just cancelling it outright would be a bad idea.
And with respect, anyone who thinks this is just an issue of egos or a territorial marking match between IDG World Expo and Apple is being incredibly nave. There are a lot of reasons for why the New York to Boston move happened and there are assuredly a lot of reasons for why a move back to New York isn't happening either.

[pcharles]

How about one show per year, but having it somewhere central like Chicago's McCormick center? Chicago is a great city, and it is easy to access by road and air. A lot of people could drive to Chicago from Midwestern cities, or even east coast at a push.

[Moof_in_Charge]

Thanks for going in to length and describing your point. I think we all know the expense associated with moving a show to NYC is rather high. I think I may have posted that in my brief post but may be it is worth another look /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
A. The New York Metropolitan area is rather large.. it encompasses a 30 mile radius of Manhattan. There are plenty of places to hold a convention style forum without using the Javits center. Insurance cost is a wash. It is high wherever you go.
B. If the vendor's argument is valid than why did the show move to Boston... why not just cancel it last year, furthermore why not cancel it after some key vendors backed out?
C. "Apple had their excuse to scale back their presence" Of course this is speculation on your part just as much as some naive folks here who would speculate and say "maybe" egos were at fault!
D. Again, If expense is an issue, why did the show move to Boston instead of canceling it outright? (I know NYC is more expensive but Boston is not cheap either)
E. So did the attendance... more people attended the NYC show than People in Boston the Year before... Look it up.. this is from MacWorlds PR machine a few years back...
F. the Javits center certainly has faults but I tell you what.. It was a hell of a lot better than getting bussed between two locations everyday in Boston... not to mention Boston's inability to absorb such an influx of visitors a few years ago.... you were lucky if you found a decent hotel room and if you did you suffered the rate premium brought on by the show. May be it's different now but Boston was HELLISH... the line to get on a bus just to go from one convention center to another was wasting hours. It was terrible... I dont know how well you are familiar with Manhattan (I live here) but the statement about the hotels is simply not true. You simply can not and should not use this as a comparison point...
G. The cost to put up employees is expensive... a Path ride (shorter than a Subway ride) in to Hoboken NJ/Jersey City would offer any budget minded vendor quick access to Javits at half the price in Boston... the point here is that in NY metropolitan areas you have far more choices than you would anywhere else on the planet... BANK ON IT.
H+I. Yes very true but also not correct in many ways. General events that encompassed the rainbow of industries (like Macworld) suffered because customer's need to target specific industries took over. People's jobs were getting more defined, streamlined and focused. Dont tell me attendance at NAB is low or they are about to cancel Internet World... hey lets just boil it down to how successful Photoshop World is and I know you go to a few Game shows a year so you know what I mean. Targeted shows work... people go there, people spend money and vendors love it. Because at the end of the day, people go to shows to learn something and see a side-by-side comparison of goods and vendors use them as a publicity tour. That hasnt changed and will not change... no matter how expensive it gets in NYC or wherever! Macworld just didnt evolve right. Frankly the shows confusing change of format (what was it Design World) and the consequent move to Boston were horrendous marketing mistakes that started the beginning of the end for the northeast show.
I dont need to go down the alphabet here! Lets just make Math decide if your argument is valid. There is one real way of knowing how expensive it is to do a show in NYC vs. other towns... Take a vendor... any vendor that showed up in the last NYC and the last Boston Show... divide its costs by the number of visitors to the show... that is the only way you can make a case for the "expense-argument". Everything else is irrelevant... If the cost to do a show in Boston is $10 a head vs. the cost in NYC $5... Even though you shelled out more money in NYC your real cost is lower... Since Macworld doesnt release these, I'll just present it to your sense of fairness to go and look these up and see who is right.
Calling your audience naive is really not a nice way to think about your public. As I read your reply, I couldnt help but think of you as a fatigued 3rd grade teacher who was preaching his class for the 5th time about a topic. The difference here of course is that your audience is not captive like in a classroom. Some who read a story for the first time or newcomers may not be familiar with a topic in-depth as some old-timers here. I do not believe that is the description of being Nave and is not fair here (or anywhere for that matter) to call someone naive... Certainly speculating about something is fun and if you dont want to think egos had anything to do with this whole mess than the naive finger may want to be pointed to the man in the mirror!
Best
Sean

[sigma8]

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A. The New York Metropolitan area is rather large.. it encompasses a 30 mile radius of Manhattan. There are plenty of places to hold a convention style forum without using the Javits center. Insurance cost is a wash. It is high wherever you go.

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Yeah, maybe they can rent out a walmart or a church basement.

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C. "Apple had their excuse to scale back their presence" Of course this is speculation on your part just as much as some naive folks here who would speculate and say "maybe" egos were at fault!

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Maybe since I seem to be the only one who remembers this, it didn't happen, but I really remember a comment from Apple at the time that said "even if IDG changes its mind and puts the show back in NYC, our plan is not to attend". So apple clearly had no interest in staying at the east coast show.
I thought Peter's post was comprehensive and accurate.

[sigma8]

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>>apple users are FANATICS who support anything apple
>This is true.
While there are several here who might agree with you, I do not. Such blatant generalizations about users of the Mac platform fuel many of the unnecessary flame wars between Windows (or another OS) and Mac users. Those fights do nothing to show how much better OS X is compared to the other OS. It fosters a lemming-type mentality instead of one that portrays a Mac user as a critically thinking, intelligent computer user.

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This made me chuckle. It's like:
"mac fans are crazy"
"word"
"Hey, I resent what you guys are saying, mac fans aren't crazy, we just use macs because they are the absolute best.."
But I myself use macs only because of OSX. If Longhorn (sorry, Vista) was a better unix, I imagine I'd jump ship pretty quickly. Linux is probably a better unix, but has no real vendor support. I certainly had no loyalty to the "architecture", whereas some people bemoaned the loss of the PPC chip. So anyway, yeah, I can see what you meant but I wish you luck in explaining the distinction between mac fanatics and smart computer users--who inevitably prefer macs.

[Moof_in_Charge]

>>Yeah, maybe they can rent out a walmart or a church basement.
May be that is where it needs to go! But since we are not talking about a village (Do you live in one?) and talking about the NYC metropolitan area, I assure you, there are dozens of places that come to mind. Including the old convention center in New York, stadiums, concert halls and there are some hefty hotels here with more than adequate space to handle the size of crowd that showed up in Boston this summer.
>>even if IDG changes its mind and puts the show back in NYC, our plan is not to attend
This is Apple's response:
"Today IDG announced plans to move Macworld New York to Boston in July of 2004. Apple disagrees with this decision, and will not be participating in Macworld Boston," Apple said in a statement to MacCentral. "Since IDG is no longer investing in New York, we now need to re-evaluate our participation in Macworld New York 2003. Apple will continue to participate in Macworld San Francisco in January."
As I said all the excuses in the world are meaningless... There is Math here that can decisively put to rest the fact (or the myth) that holding a show in NYC is more expensive.
1. Take a Vendor ... You pick one... any one
2. Take its cost for last Boston show
3. Take its cost for last NYC show
4. Divide that number by the number of attendees
5. The cost per set of rolling eyes will stare you in the face
6. That is the true cost to the vendor... and that is a fact
7. Any other reasons posted is irrelevant... PERIOD.
I dont mean disrespect to anyone here and certainly dont wish it upon me. But I think the formula above is very reasonable way of calculating the cost of the show, not just in NYC but anywhere!
Here is a list of upcoming conventions in Javits... most of them are for small niche industries.. it behooves me how these folks can rent out the space and MacWorld cant...http://www.javitscenter.com/events/default.asp... If expense is truly an issue, why not move it to Florida, Atlantic City, Philadelphia or wherever .. I am sure there are cheaper places than Boston too!!!

[Dan Frakes]

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As I said all the excuses in the world are meaningless... There is Math here that can decisively put to rest the fact (or the myth) that holding a show in NYC is more expensive.
1. Take a Vendor ... You pick one... any one
2. Take its cost for last Boston show
3. Take its cost for last NYC show
4. Divide that number by the number of attendees
5. The cost per set of rolling eyes will stare you in the face
6. That is the true cost to the vendor... and that is a fact
7. Any other reasons posted is irrelevant... PERIOD.
I dont mean disrespect to anyone here and certainly dont wish it upon me. But I think the formula above is very reasonable way of calculating the cost of the show, not just in NYC but anywhere!

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But consider these issues:
1) "Attendees per dollar spent" may not be as meaningful to a vendor as you think. In these days of instant product information via the Web, many vendors feel that trade shows simply aren't worth their advertising money any more. This is a recent change, and a view that has become more and more prevalent since the last NYC show.
2) As others have pointed out in this thread, trade show attendance is declining across the board. So you can't really compare a NYC show from four years ago to a Boston show from 2005.
3) Even if NYC would provide a higher rate of attendees per dollar spent, the number of dollars it requires to exhibit in NYC is much higher -- so much so that many vendors would be priced out of a NYC show, regardless of "value per dollar."

[Moof_in_Charge]

Well put Dan but, (and there is always a but...lol)
1. Since you and Peter both bring up advertising budget, could you tell me what happens to advertising rates during the Superbowl? How about the Oscars and so on? Does Apple pay the same ad rate to advertise in Macworld as it does in Time Magazine?
It is directly correlated to the number of viewers... lets boil it down to a simple leaflet hand out.. if you print more leaflets, you will reach more people but your final cost goes up...but then again, your cost per leaflet drops... it is the same concept here.
2. As I clearly said... the attendance for "General purpose" shows have declined. But attendances for targeted shows have gone up. See the link below and you may find it interesting... Just because some big names are fading it doesnt mean the rest of the industry is slumping... taking out the 9/11 factor for 2002 you will see that the interest has been on a steady rise. http://www.cs.ucsb.e...oth/conf/stats/ You also dont have to go too far.. look at the gaming industry and you will see the attendance for those shows has skyrocketed!
3. There is a divergence here between the Apples, Adobes, Microsofts of this world and smaller developers...the problem with MacWorld is that the target audience wants to see the Apples and Adobes foremost and the right forum for these companies is major world-cities like NYC. So the smaller developer has to pay to play if they want the same exposure in this league. If the developer doesnt see it this way than the whole focus of the show needs to reflect that. This of course was a big communication failure of the Macworld Expo team and I truly believe the marketing blunders of the Expo team (mostly planning and strategy) over the years contributed to its demise greatly. IMHO
The show should have never left Boston but once it did it needed to stay where it was. The attempt to change the venue several years back was also not translated to the general public well leaving many people disappointed and bewildered as to what had happened to their beloved MacWorld Expo. The marketing team executed two critical flawed strategy followed by the death nail to move the show back to Boston.
While I am not exposed to any behind the scenes data, I would have to boldly speculate that someone on the expo side may have had a clash of strategy with someone on the Apple side. While I can see why how justified someone from MW may have been, overruling someone from Apple was not a good move.
I am saddened greatly by what happened to MacWorld-Expo-Northeast but cant say I didnt see it coming! Sadly, I still think the show can be revived and brought back to lifeonly if the people in charge would vacate their seat!
All of this aside, your #3 statement clearly states that in this business you get what you pay for therefore just because you get a whole bunch more for your dollar in NYC, it doesnt make it anymore expensive than say BostonGetting priced out of a deal is different than the deal being too expensive!
In year's past Apple's name and MacWorld was synonymous. I think Steve Jobs was brilliant in backing away as he could see the possibility that a demise in MacWorld Expo may (just may) correlate (or be viewed as) the demise of the Mac!

Best
Sean

[jdb8167]

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Since you and Peter both bring up advertising budget, could you tell me what happens to advertising rates during the Superbowl?

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When was the last time you've seen a commercial from Apple, Adobe or even Microsoft during the Superbowl? The last one I remember was 2000 HAL commercial from Apple.
All of your arguments are moot if Apple declines to attend. If Apple says no, then none of your arguments matter. Apple is on record as saying they aren't interested in an East Coast show. As you say, they prefer to attend targeted shows like NAB.
Apple is not going to exhibit at any Macworld East. It is over.