The State of Macworld Expo

Macworld Expo 2010 just wrapped up this past Saturday, and to many analyst’s surprise, it was a huge success. The show floor was thriving, packed with many Mac geeks looking to get their hands on the latest wares from vendors. This time last year, nearly everyone was saying this would be the last Macworld Expo, but it is clear that is not the case. The state of Macworld Expo 2010 is after the break.

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When Apple announced that Steve Jobs would not be delivering the 2009 keynote address and it would be their last year exhibiting at the show, it was a double-whammy to the folks at IDG World Expo, who put on Macworld Expo year after year. Many thought that with the lack of Apple exhibiting, the expo would not survive for more than a year. Paul Kent, the general manager of Macworld Expo, now had the task of reinventing the expo and making sure the community would still return.

One of the things they opted to do is have more feature presentations, replacing the annual keynote address by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, or most recently, Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller. These feature presentations, usually an hour long, are given by notables in the community, and this year’s were full of entertainment and insight from David Pogue, Guy Kawasaki, Leo Laporte and John Gruber. They were open to all expo attendees, and were mostly packed to the brim, some of them even spilling into overflow rooms with video screens.

On day one of expo, it was clear that this year’s expo was already a success. The show floor was packed, and it was hard for anyone to see at any given booth around the hall. iPhone app developers had a chance to show off their latest and greatest at the Mobile Applications Showcase, tiny kiosks with four developers per. It was a great opportunity for users to speak to mostly the developers themselves, not some marketing schtick. With Apple’s absence, other exhibitors were in the limelight for once, not overshadowed by whatever Apple had announced the previous morning.

Everything in the past had been spread across two convention halls, the larger Moscone South (where a lot of the big exhibitors had been) and Moscone North (where the smaller developers were exhibiting). This year, everything was crammed into the smaller Moscone North convention hall, including all 250 exhibitors, nearly half of the 500 or more exhibitors Macworld Expo has hosted in the past. I didn’t think it would be easy to cover the show floor in a day, and clearly I was wrong. I missed seeing the smaller Mac software developers who had exhibited at years past like Panic and Bare Bones Software.

I think exhibitors who stood on the sidelines this year waiting to see how the show would pan out should strongly consider exhibiting next year, even if at a smaller booth. Many companies had a much smaller booths than last year, notably Microsoft, and with the release of Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 coming shortly before next year’s expo, I think a larger booth is to be expected. Having a presence is better than having no presence at all, and without Apple’s attendance, all the attention is driven to those who got no attention at all in the past. I want to see Adobe, Canon, Nikon and the other big names in the Mac industry return to exhibiting at the show.

Some exhibitors even went as far as exhibiting this past January at the Consumer Electronics Show. There is something wrong with this decision, CES is not open to the general public, only industry professionals and news media. There are ways to cheat this system, but nothing is better than getting attention directly from the consumers. Paul Kent said over six hundred Apple media professionals were in attendance this year, and with that there is great opportunity for every developer gaining attention on the blogs and websites devoted to all things Apple.

Macworld Expo 2011 is set to be held January 25th to 29th in Moscone West, the newer three-story building across the street. The convention center will be home to the conferences and exhibit hall, making it more convenient for attendees instead of having to make the trek across the street. Having everything consolidated into one building will be a positive aspect of next year’s show.

With the strong attendance that the show had this year, I can only think that next year’s show will be another success for IDG World Expo and Paul Kent.