Macworld Expo is moving to the Hynes

R.A. Hettinga (apparently) - 12:35pm Nov 10, 2004 PST
via email

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The irony of this is practically cosmic.

Back in the day, before Jobs returned to Apple, did the
iMac/iPod/iOther thing and told IDG to take a hike, MacWorld was the
biggest trade show in Boston. Heck, it might have even been bigger
than MacWorld San Francisco. So big, in fact, that it took up *two*
exhibition facilities, the two biggest in town, the Bayside Expo
Center and the World Trade Center. Heck, the year they accidentally
let me speak there, it also took up the "Castle", the former Boston
armory, just for Steve's invitation-only keynote.

So, MacWorld couldn't stand shuttle-bus hell anymore, and they moved
to New York, where the convention halls were bigger, and started
holding it in the Javitts Center. The Powers That Be in Boston
decided this wasn't good, so they built the Mother of All Convention
Spaces, in South Boston, just west of the World Trade Center, and,
not by coincidence, in the very epicenter of the Big Dig. The Dig is
mostly done, and the new convention center was built in time for the
Democratic National Convention, though nobody would hold it there
because it wasn't telegenic enough, opting for the Fleet Center, AKA
New Boston Garden.

Which, in turn, forced the *closure* of most freeways in and out of
Boston, including the self-same Big Dig central artery depression,
because it goes *directly* under the Fleet Center on its way to
points north and south. Your tax dollars at work.

Anyway, Steve Happened, Apple bailed on MacWorld, the dot-bomb
exploded, MacWorld New York got too small for New York, and what the
hey, let's move back to Boston, where there's a new convention
center.

But, guess what? MacWorld is now too *small* for The Convention
Center That MacWorld Built. In the article below, IDC announces that
MacWorld Boston will now be held in Boston's *old* convention center,
the Hynes Memorial Auditorium, somewhere on the top five of Howie
Carr's "Hack-o-Rama" of graft-ridden Boston political boondogles like
the Boston Common Garage.

And, as the graft-pastures have moved from the top end of the Back
Bay to the bottom end of South Boston, We The People (And Our Duly
Elected Leaders) are looking at getting rid of the Haynes itself now,
because it's, um, too small...

Oh, the infamy of it all...

Cheers,
RAH
- -------

<http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2004/11/06/macworld_is_
moving_to_the_hynes?mode=PF>

The Boston Globe

Macworld is moving to the Hynes

Organizer says show can't fill new center

By Keith Reed, Globe Staff | November 6, 2004

Apple Macintosh users might feel a bit dizzy next spring.

After more than a year of negotiating brought the Macworld Conference
& Expo back from New York to Boston in April, the show's organizer,
IDG World Expo of Framingham, said yesterday that it is moving the
show again -- to the Hynes Convention Center on Boylston Street.

Several years of declining attendance, a battered technology sector,
and a soured relationship between IDG and Apple Computer Corp. left
Macworld too small for the new convention center, executives said
yesterday.

"Based on feedback that we have, the show in its current size is not
big enough" to fill the new center's massive exhibit hall, said
Warwick Davies, group vice president at IDG World Expo. "We want
people to be able to feel a lot more close together."

Macworld began its conference in Boston in the mid-1980s at the
Bayside Expo Center, and later spread to include the World Trade
Center. The annual event was held in Boston until 1997, when the
technology sector heated up and the show grew too big for local
facilities to hold. So Macworld moved to the Jacob Javits Convention
Center in New York while Massachusetts officials planned and built
the humongous new convention center on the South Boston Waterfront.

The show was lured back this year and given use of the new center's
exhibit hall for free. But attendance at this year's show was just
over 8,000, compared with 50,000 in 1997, its peak year.

With the move back to the Hynes, IDG is losing its deal for free
space, said James Rooney, the executive director of the Massachusetts
Convention Center Authority, which owns both centers.

"The deal, it's over. What we'll do is negotiate a new deal with IDG
for the Macworld at the Hynes," he said.

Macworld used to be the kind of show local convention center boosters
touted as the reason why a new, large facility like the South Boston
center was needed. Meanwhile, Governor Mitt Romney has advocated the
sale of the Hynes.

Rooney said Macworld's move proves the Hynes is still viable.

"The Hynes provides that ability to host an event that only needs a
small space," he said. "But I don't know that it contributes in a big
way to the 'do we or don't we need the Hynes' question."

 

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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rahibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'