Apple and Avid NOT Exhibiting in '08

[Mike McNeese]

...According to a report from Macrumors.com...

What's up with that? I thought Apple and Avid were the staples of the show?

[Barry_Green]

Apple and Avid have been huge presences at the show, and their annual booth battle has been loud, raucous, and newsworthy.

Avid pulled out of the show months ago. Apple just announced they are also pulling out.

The trade show business is on hard times overall. There's just not as much reason to go to them, now that the interconnectivity offered by the internet means you can get all the news and see all the products "virtually" from your living room.

[mikkowilson]

Having had the task of reporting to "the Internet" (DVXuser) from many recent trade shows. Other than hands on tests, I find that those at home on their computers actually know *more* than those at the trade shows because of the speed of communications.

I can only see the news from the booths around me at any given time, however those following along on 'user and other websites instantly get news from the entire show instantly.


Trade shows are GREAT for meeting people and trying out gear hands on. But other than that, the incentives are dropping fast in comparison to the speed of news delivered to the online viewer/reader.


- Mikko

[Jason Adams]

Is this part of some Avid or Apple 11th hour marketing stunt...or will this be forgotten by April?

[Barry_Green]

No stunt -- it's a recognition that trade shows are becoming less relevant. I've seen and heard it happen at trade shows 'round the globe; this last year I've spoken at NAB, Broadcast India, Broadcast Asia, and SMPTE Australia and the story's the same everywhere.

[TedRR]

I can see downsizing to a more practical level, but man, totally bailing seems, well, just wrong. I think this will give other companies that struggle to be on the show floor an excuse to bail in the next few years.

Since I don't use either, it doesn't bother me much, but it's too bad that all the users won't have a place to gather and get to know each other on such a large scale as the show floor.
I know I like to hang at the NewTek booth and visit with the people I converse with daily on the forums. Maybe I'll catch a few of you guys there.

By the way, we've been going non-stop for a couple weeks and in my haste I hadn't noticed there were other threads on this. So sorry for being so stupid and adding yet another post on this. Sorry.

Hope to see a lot of you at NAB! I'll be there.