Linuxworld Boston Missing Anchor Tenants

Technocrat

Linuxworld Boston Missing Anchor Tenants

Technocrat.net Editor

Tue Apr 04 13:20:18 -0700 2006

Open+Source+Software.

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Several years ago, the LinuxWorld Expo show East moved from New York to Boston. The West show is in San Francisco. There's always been talk about why the East show left the Big Apple. Some say that it's because IDG, the conference organizer, is a Boston-based company. Some say Microsoft shut the Linux show out of NY's Jacob Javitz center by booking all of the possible dates. And some say that IDG, which runs a number of Microsoft-related shows, colluded with Microsoft to take the show out of New York.
The San Francisco show is huge. The Boston show is failing.

This year, conference attendees were startled to see the show floor's two main anchor tenants: IBM and HP, missing in action. The most visible booth left on the show floor seems to be that of AMD.
IDG now runs a Linux Business Expo in New York, a non-technical show . I've not attended that and thus can't speak of the buzz.
Trade shows usually book their exhibit space for their next event during a show, and the companies that have put the most spend into the show over previous years get first priority in picking booth spaces. So, IDG's known that the two anchor tenants were missing for at least half a year. Perhaps that's one reason that LinuxWorld expo moved this year from the Hynes conference center, the star venue in the center of town, to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center at the harbor.
While the Boston show fails, Linux and Open Source are bigger than ever. But apparently people would rather go to San Francisco in August than Boston in early April.

tradeshow business

zogger

Tue Apr 04 13:32:46 -0700 2006
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I was in the tradeshow biz for a long time. Take this FWIW, anecdotal. The two most despised tradeshow venues, that I heard from exhibitor after exhibitor, pick any industry it doesn't matter, were Javits center in NYC and McCormick in Chicago. The exhibitors hate those places from the gouging, bungling and thievery that goes on. They still go there because those are important business centers and can handle large shows easily and there's plenty of hotel space, etc, etc, but they still hate them.

It is a shame....

wowbagger

Tue Apr 04 16:49:51 -0700 2006
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It is a shame that things like Linuxworld cannot be held somewhere like St. Louis, KC, the like - someplace a bit more centrally located.

I realize that there is more "draw" in places like NYC and Chicago - more non-show related things for the wife and kids to do while you are at the show. But it sure would be nice if we could get the shows more centrally located.

(Of course, I'd love the shows to be in Wichita, but considering how sucky it is to try to get a flight in to this place, that is NOT going to happen....)

A visit to reality

lars

Tue Apr 04 20:26:26 -0700 2006
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I'm not so sure NYC has draw. It has in its own way its fine points for some, but it's rather inconvenient and expensive to visit. Plus lots of negative connotations from all that music video footage we saw on the tv news ad nauseum for many months staring fall 2001 as well as from the political exploitation of the events depicted in the music videos. In general, with all the hassle, expense and unpleasantness no one from the US goes to NYC if they can help it.
Another point is that the East Coast used to be the destination of European visitors. What proportion of earlier LinuxWorld East visitors used to be from Europe? What with all the hassle, expense and harassment no one goes to the US if they can help it, especially for vacation. Maybe merging LinuxWorld with the one in Toronto or Montréal would help. Or one could be held in Windsor on the border. It would certainly increase the number of overseas visitors who could avoid the US.
Locations which have seen better days and are looking to renew themselves, like Detroit, might be very helpful. St Louis, Raleigh/Durham, Ann Arbor are closer populations of F/OSS users, developers and tech businesses. They would be a good choice. Or Toledo. Isn't it still reachable by Amtrak?
Or, LinuxWorld organizers could sit down with a map of interstate highways, bus and train schedules, and an overview of flight prices and take a good look at reality. Then pick a few of the sites that are cheapest and easiest to reach and go from there. The postal sevice, the fax machine and, later, e-mail and the web made it so one could move operations away from the east coast. Moving operations made it possible to move headquarters and meetings away to more pleasant and cost-effective locations. The East Coast is so 19th / 20th century.