Usual Crowd at Seybold Is Missing
Visitors to the Seybold digital publishing conference this week in San Francisco enjoyed a rare treat for a popular trade show: no waiting.
Attendance at the annual confab of publication designers, advertisers and computer geeks was down sharply from last year because of the weak economy and travel reductions after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Lines to preview the latest publishing software or gadgets were nearly nonexistent--even at the expansive area for desktop-publishing leader Adobe Systems Inc. At some booths, exhibitors outnumbered customers 3 to 1.
“We were expecting about 30% to 40% of last year’s [35,000] attendance, if we were lucky. I don’t think we are going to pull that in,” said Brent Haley, director of strategic development with Pantone Inc., a Carlstadt, N.J., maker of color-design tools. “I’m meeting more [friends] than customers,” he said.
Seybold features 278 exhibition booths, down from 325 last year. About 25 companies were lost because of the economic slowdown. Twenty-two other firms--including Eastman Kodak Co. and Nikon Corp.--pulled out at the last minute because of travel-logistics problems and fears associated with this month’s disasters, according to conference organizers. Some exhibitors reduced their booth sizes in anticipation of slumping attendance.
At times Wednesday, the Moscone Center’s broad corridors and entryways were so sparsely populated that they could have accommodated a touch-football game with little disruption.
The conference reflected general weakness in the convention business. Trade associations project the convention industry’s losses at up to $1.5 billion for September and October alone.
Los Angeles-based Key3Media Group, Seybold’s organizer, had considered postponing the event after the terror attacks. But the company decided to move forward--for business reasons and out of a sense of obligation to the conference and to the city, said Gene Gable, Seybold’s president. “We didn’t think that it would be disrespectful to the victims, after two weeks, to go back to work.”
Similarly, a few exhibitors and attendees described their attendance as a small contribution to getting America back to work.
“I don’t want anyone telling me that I can’t live my life,” said Martha Wallace, an ad sales representative for New York-based EdDesign magazine who had flown in from Cincinnati to attend the show.
Pantone’s Haley agreed.
“To stop our society moving forward with new innovation is exactly what the terrorists want,” he said.
But many attendees ascribed no symbolic value to their presence.
“There are other ways to be patriotic,” said Windsor Green, who teaches publishing-software classes at nearby Santa Rosa Junior College and attended the show to research her fast-moving curriculum. “Going to a peace rally--that would be high on my list.”
Most exhibitors viewed their participation as necessary to protect a substantial investment.
“We really didn’t have a choice,” said Julianne Hanson, marketing manager for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Instantis Inc., a maker of Web-publishing software. Her company was housed in a spartan, 10-foot-by-20-foot booth to save money, but still spent $30,000 on the show--and paid months in advance.
“In the trade show industry, short of a miracle, you can’t get your money back,” Hanson said. The show’s contract excludes even acts of terrorism as a reason for a refund, she said.
Instantis won’t return to Seybold next year, Hanson added.
Shares in Key3Media, which operates various technology trade shows, closed Wednesday at $3.71, down 8 cents on the New York Stock Exchange.
