ITEXPO East attendance up 15 percent

TMC says last week's ITEXPO East conference pulled in 15 percent more people than the same event last year.  

Total attendance given by TMC is 8,309, with 211 paid conference attendees, 6,980 "VIPs," 847 speakers, 202 speakers, and 69 members of the press. You can almost read a bit of giddiness between the lines, since the show is showing growth at a time when the general economy is in a downturn.

Perhaps the more interesting question not asked is why such an uptick? Did the presence of Carl Ford and a wireless event along with an absence of a VON event in San Jose next month bring out a lot of people who would have either A) Been die-hard VON attendees otherwise and/or B) would have had to choose or split marketing dollars between VON and ITEXPO? 

Certainly, there have been past complaints in the VoIP community of having to choose between shows. Since there are no longer two U.S. VON shows and one or two Europe VON shows, a lot of companies and attendees find themselves with some free dollars even if they are trimming up budgets.

For more:
- Rich Tehrani's blog [1] on the numbers.

Related articles
IT Expo vs. the ghost of VON (and everybody else) - FierceVoIP [2]
SLIDESHOW:The opening of ITEXPO East 2009, Feb. 2 [3]
SLIDESHOW: IT EXPO East 2009, Day 2 [4]