To no one’s great surprise, this week’s Seybold Seminars trade show in San Francisco has seen light attendance both from exhibitors and the public. Like many events scheduled for this month, the show has been impacted by travel plans cancelled in the wake of this month’s terror attacks on U.S. cities on September 11.
Writing for Reuters, Lisa Baertlin quotes Seybold Seminars and Publications president Gene Gable as saying that he’s quite pleased with the turnout, all things considered. Although the organization doesn’t have final attendance numbers, they saw about a 10 percent loss in exhibitors who cancelled at the last minute because of travel concerns, according to Gable. Big players like Eastman Kodak and Olympus stayed home this year.
Vendors and attendees agreed that the traffic and list of exhibitors were off, but some felt that the current economic slowdown might have had as much to do with that as the events of earlier this month.