Dean Taylor
Dean Taylor, CATEC.com
I'm (reluctantly) in Chicago attending the ICA show this week. The weather is clear blue, chilly (actually cold) and windy. But hey, at least it's not raining or snowing, right?
I don't have any factual information or numbers, so this is just my observation and opinion today:
There was a small crowd of attendees (maybe 150) waiting for the gates to the show floor to open at noon, but not nearly what I remember in past years. Once in, the show floor also seemed much smaller than usual as far as vendors. I go every year and I would say this is the smallest I have seen it yet. Even some of the "Big Hitters" had drastically down-sized their booth size. Of course some of them had to keep up their reputation so they still had big booths with 25 sales people standing around, but that's just how they roll.
By 2:30 PM most of the salesmen in the booths were just standing around and eating the candy they had for hand-outs and shooting the S&#t with each other. There was some traffic in the isles, but not nearly what I recall.
I paid $22 for a slice of lame pizza, small salad and two bottles of water and proceeded to sit down at the tables where it seemed half of the attendees and vendors were also sitting down eating.
Again, this is just my humble opinion. I sure hope it picks up again next year when they return to Vegas.
I don't have any factual information or numbers, so this is just my observation and opinion today:
There was a small crowd of attendees (maybe 150) waiting for the gates to the show floor to open at noon, but not nearly what I remember in past years. Once in, the show floor also seemed much smaller than usual as far as vendors. I go every year and I would say this is the smallest I have seen it yet. Even some of the "Big Hitters" had drastically down-sized their booth size. Of course some of them had to keep up their reputation so they still had big booths with 25 sales people standing around, but that's just how they roll.
By 2:30 PM most of the salesmen in the booths were just standing around and eating the candy they had for hand-outs and shooting the S&#t with each other. There was some traffic in the isles, but not nearly what I recall.
I paid $22 for a slice of lame pizza, small salad and two bottles of water and proceeded to sit down at the tables where it seemed half of the attendees and vendors were also sitting down eating.
Again, this is just my humble opinion. I sure hope it picks up again next year when they return to Vegas.
