Macworld Expo May Return to Boston

Anonymous Being of Power writes "According to a New York Post Article, Macworld New York may be held once again in Boston due to rising costs and lower attendance."

Comments

I remember MacWorld Boston 1985...

[dpbsmith]

Lots of carrying cases. Lots of fonts. Not very much software.

I got Stephen Chernicoff to sign my copy of "Macintosh Revealed."

White Pine Software had an empty booth with a sign taped to the table announcing that they would soon have their first product, a VT-220 emulator for the Mac.

Someone was demoing software that created a small amount of RAM cache for the floppy drive. If you had a whopping 512K of memory, that RAM cache actually could speed things up a bit.

What else was there? Overvue, from Provue Development, I think... Filevision from Telos, which was really mindblowing at the time.

I believe it was the 1986 MacWorld that had the huge inflated Macintosh outside promoting MacPublisher, a very early desktop publishing product.

In the first few years, MacWorld was really great. You could belly up to a booth and really try out and learn about new software. The people exhibiting the software generally knew a lot about it and were often developers.

Ah, well... MacWorld may come back to Boston, but it will never be like 1985.

Re:I remember MacWorld Boston 1985...

[coastcat]

I wasn't there in '85, but did suffer through the air-conditioning-free '87 version. Went as just a spectator, but got roped into manning the booth for our user group (Washington Apple Pi, one of the few classics still in existence). We were all the way on one end of the convention center, and the only properly functioning air conditioning was on the other end. Oy.

Sat through a demo of Word Perfect for the Mac. Yes, in 1987. What year was that thing finally released? The demo was a disaster, so the rep smoothed things over a bit by handing out free painter's caps with the Word Perfect logo. My dad still mows the lawn while wearing that cap!

The WAP booth was right next to Hayden Software, which was demoing MusicWorks. The same music loop played over and over and over again... drove me batty.

I can't remember if Wingz was shown there, or if it debuted a bit later. You remember Wingz, don't you? Great tote bags, lots of enthusiasm, pure vaporware...

Re:I remember MacWorld Boston 1985...

[dpbsmith]

I'm pretty sure HyperCard was 1987, not 1986. Bill Atkinson presented a session on it himself. A very worthy successor to Rolodex! One part I remember distinctly was that he personally promised that the file format would be open and documented. In due course, I saw a Tech Note entitled "Hypercard File Format," and was very disappointed to find it consisted of a single sentence saying "The Hypercard file format is not available."

I don't think MacBottom could have been out in 1985. I think MacBottom was one of the first generation of SCSI external drives that materialized with the MacPlus in 1986. The first drives all had to work with the serial interface.

A Coupla Points

[maggard]

1. MacWorld was a Boston event from the start. Every August it would roll into town as the biggest thing in that deadest month. But Boston's three convention centers (Hynes, Bayside, WTC-Boston) were small, and far apart, and MacWorld didn't like that (neither did DECWorld years ago but they rented ships to supplement services - that was style!)

2. So MacWorld pulled out of Boston and went to NYC. This was a blow as not only was MacWorld a big thing in Boston but NYC is the perennial rival. The MacWorld move was one of the big kicks in getting Boston's new mega-convention center built.

3. Now Boston's new mega-convention center is 1/2 way built and it's got a dozen shows booked. For the next decade! They're even talking about shutting down the one of the old convention centers to drive business to the new one (this is possible in Boston - reality has nothing to do with this it's patronage and appearance, the fellow in charge has the job for life anyway.)

4. So getting MacWorld back would be a coup for Boston. Not only would it come back from the evil NYC but it would return to the new convention center to show that at last the facilities weren't too small, Boston could hold a biiig convention. Boston would likely be willing to cut all kinds of deal for that industry news as well as to quell the local critics.

5. The MacWorld folks would likely be happy too. Javits is usuriously expensive and nasty nasty nasty to work with. I used to work trade shows years ago and nothing was worse then Javits. Extortion, unbelievably bad service, wrecked displays, fees and costs and hassles for everything

6. Apple would likely be OK with going back to Boston. There's more educational and high-tech customers in Boston, more media and advertising in NYC, both cities have hard-to-crack finance & insurance. It's probably a six-of-one/half-dozen-of-the-other as far as Apple is concerned.

7. The attendees would likely be as happy to go back to Boston. While it's still expensive it's a far sight cheaper then NYC. The couple-hundred miles further north also help too - Boston in August is less awful then NYC.

8. Finally, this would be 2004. Aside from Boston's opening date arrangements have doubtless already started being made for NYC. The move from Boston po'd many of the folks involved with it's relatively short notice so I doubt that happening again in reverse - the lesson has likely been learned. I can see this being used as a bargaining tool with Javits and unless they really cut a schu-weet deal I bet Boston will scoop this. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the interested parties on Boston find a way to pay MacWorld to come to Boston just to prove their point.