What recession? Interop: Las Vegas sees paid conference attendance spike 30%

When I spoke with Lenny Heymann, general manager of Interop, he was very conservative in predicting event turnout, saying Interop 2010 was “going to be a little smaller than last year’s” conference. Maybe he was just being modest, because once the crowds swelled in, the show was plenty busy.

Several analysts, journalists and attendees all told me that numbers seemed as high or higher than last year’s Interop (I didn’t attend), but press relations for the show said final numbers would not be available until after they closed up shop, sensibly enough. They would, however, part with one statistic: Paid conference attendance was up 30% over last year, which would (as best I can tell) put conference attendance at around 1,900 people. Keep in mind, conference attendance is a fraction of total attendance since a lot of people just browse the show floor or are exhibiting at the show themselves.

According to the EEIAC (an independent event attendance auditor), last year’s event saw a total of 1,478 conference attendees (not including who just visited the expo floor, which is free), which just over half the previous year’s attendance at 2,846 (Source PDF ).