MacExpo 2006 : geekland

Guess where I decided to spend an hour or so of my work day out today ... yup, MacExpo 2006. Where the cool geeks used to congregate. The last time I was there was probably a good 5 years ago. The years following it was held in Angel Business Centre (smaller venue); this year in Kensington Olympia (which is bigger) I thought well, squeeze in a little time see what it's like. Unfortunately it was a trimmer show, only the ground floor was occupied. At the last show I was still a student, the show was much bigger back then with more variety, and occupancy jam-packed on two floors.


A narrow aisle, crowd traffic at about 12 noon. Incidentally seminar time.


That's about one third size of the show.


The Apple seminar area, taken from the screen side.


Same Apple seminar area, taken in reverse angle.


Apple seminar area, taken in another angle.


One of the Adobe booths.


One side of the Apple area, taken from HP booth. Behind is a length of Macs set up for test driving their products. Quark is at the bottom left.

This year I remembered to register and got free tickets (usual £12) ... but in the goodie bag was a Computer Warehouse newsletter, and nothing else. Oh, unless you included the plastic bag it came in. Is this a sign of hard economic times ahead? Had a better deal when I was a student back in the day!

Major players were Apple, Adobe, Capital Radio, Sony HD. There was a Music stage (no music happening, apparently on Sat there will be live music from Keisha White, Steve Levine and 6 Day Riot). I was enquiring about podcasts from the Capital Radio bus. Bought a couple of magazines (Computer Arts) for a fiver. Picked up a few freebies - Crumpler had a nice huge sticker, Google had promos on their new products (Google Earth, etc), Quark 7 was launched (had an invite to their private keynote at 10 am the morning but I opted not to go in the end). I am a long-time user and champion of Quark but recently started looking into Indesign as I felt Quark was getting slack, so maybe this is their breakthrough year.

Good ole Apple provided the Macs to test drive their products and softwares. Sony HD introduced their BlueRay technology, I guess you need to add a burner to your HD-ready kit (um ... that would be the flatscreen, the vcam, the memory, the list is endless).

Presentations/seminars were given by Adobe, Apple, FileMaker etc. You know ... those raised platforms with no fences, meant to look inviting. You sit down and try to listen, or pretend to watch the mouse cursor move on those projected light image in broad daylight (a design fault in the skylight ceiling) ... and then there is that species called passerbys. Yeah you know who you are - watching the screen with the commitment of watching an empty aquarium, then at the handsfree miked-up American presenter, back to glancing at the seated people how they are dressed this morning (did you really want to pit stop next to someone younger and trendier), checking if the empty seats in the middle is worth getting to - halfway into the session (by staring at the seated heathen, to gauge if people will get up for them to shuffle in), and then finally decide to move on. Or those who just stand unnervingly close to you if you are at the end of the row, but you couldn't move inside as everyone next to you (including you) wants a quick getaway in case the seminar got boring ...

Nike + iPod tagged their products together - just do it - a shelf of shoes, a Nike van, three jogging tracks and a few mannequins hehe. Essentially it is Synching your run/workout with your music ... There was also a whole benchful of eager gamers testing out the latest. A couple of stands sold iPod accessories, gear4, laptop Gimps, eyeTV dongle for laptops to watch TV amongst others. A few publishing companies were there to promote their mags, as were the usual Mac retailer big boys (Computer Warehouse, Micro Anvika, etc). Stock photography companies next to Canon and Nikon. Canon was promoting their 400D and Nikon the D80 (aka D200 Lite). There was even a babe on a bike being photographed with no spectators (surprise surprise) - Photography stage. Oh I must tell you my experience at my first Bike Show at the NEC Birmingham - I was adamant to get my free calendar and boy ... no wonder the skimpily-clad girls tried to avoid me. Yup you guessed why!

Anyways back to the MacExpo show, I ended up giving my ticket to a friend (it's open till Sat). The last day is usually mayhem and best day to get deals but I couldn't be bothered to join the hen-cacklings. So the Big Question is: just who were the AppleExpo organisers targeting? The professionals, the new Mac converts (from the PC camp), the iPod and MacBook bargain hunters to accessorize, the students (who can barely afford their beer/rent/loans)? All I can say is judging from the thin crowds today, who knows if MacExpo got it right this time. We'll just have to wait and see.