2006 – I’m taking a break from writing about Apple history today and writing about the present. On Saturday, I visited MacExpo 2006 in London for the day (I last visited MacExpo 2004).

In summary, I personally found it quite disappointing. You may disagree, as I know there are many who absolutely love MacExpo. However, the exhibitors were very similar to previous shows, and I didn’t notice many new products being announced at the show.

Not only this, but Apple’s booth was surprisingly cramped and small, and they had the largest floor space of all the exhibitors. It was difficult to even get to a computer to play with. The MacBook Pros on display weren’t even the new Core 2 models.

The main exhibitors included Apple, Quark, Adobe, HP, Google, Intego, Crumpler, MacWarehouse, Griffin Technology, Nikon, MacUser, Macworld, Micro Anvika, and several others. Although Microsoft were a listed exhibitor, I didn’t notice their booth at all, despite the fact I walked through the entire show.

Mentioning that, it only took me a mere 45 minutes to walk through the show. This included talking to one exhibitor, entering two quizzes, looking at products and booths, and the like. A good trade show typically takes at least an hour-and-a-half to go around. I was expecting to stay for two hours.

The Nike area of the show was noisy. There were at least three booths, all playing music over each other, so I quickly left that part of the show. However, I must say that I enjoyed the Games section, which was next-door to the Nike section.

Another major problem with this year’s MacExpo was the number of exhibitor assistants trying to give out flyers. Almost every booth was doing this, and most of the flyers I was not interested in because they were for iPod docks, uninteresting software, or simply price lists from authorized Mac resellers.

The small booths that sat around the outer area of the show hall were below standards. These were generally uninteresting, unappealing, and some didn’t even look like they were finished.

However, there was one small booth that caught my attention: Realmac Software, a UK based developer known for developing RapidWeaver, a popular web authoring tool for Mac OS X. I thought their booth was nice and simple, rather than cluttered and unappealing.

In conclusion, I’d like to see more exhibitors, more small businesses, more new products on display, and a larger booth from Apple.

The show has also become very corporate and is too focused on photography, video, and imagery solutions. I’d like to see more resources at the show for developers, general consumers, and entertainment products.

To put it simply, a more exciting show, one that can compare better to Macworld Conference & Expo held annually in San Francisco. Although MacExpo can never be the same as the United States equivalent (due to the lack of a Steve Jobs keynote), it can be much improved.

I have my doubts on whether or not I shall visit MacExpo 2007, but I plan to visit Macworld Conference and Expo 2007 in January, so look for my summary on that show in January.

Further Reading

• MacExpo UK
• MacExpo coverage, MacProf (captions in Italian)