Seybold San Francisco Takes Different Shape

The annual Seybold San Francisco event took place September 8-12 at the Moscone West convention center.

Says James M. Smith, vice president and general manager of Seybold Seminars, Publications, and Consulting, this year's event moved away from the trade show model and moved back into a conference/pavilion structure. "This year, we doubled the size of the conference in terms of the number of sessions and tutorials offered among nine core content channels," he says.

The change in event model could have had an effect on this year's attendance levels, which stood at some 10,640 visitors and exhibitors. Smith said in July that he expected roughly 20,000 people to attend Seybold San Francisco 2003. Last year's conference drew approximately 18,000 people.

Nonetheless, those professionals attending the event were eager to learn how to expand their businesses among various media types.

Vyomesh ("V.J.") Joshi, executive vice president of Hewlett-Packard's Printing and Imaging group, presented a keynote speech entitled "Unleashing the Power of the Digital Revolution in Imaging and Printing." Macromedia chief executive Rob Burgess and Jürgen Kurz, vice president of product management for Quark, also addressed attendees.

In Seybold's PDF Shootout, perfect scores were posted by Agfa ApogeeX, Esko-Graphics FlowDrive 5.0, RipIt OpenRIP, and Dainippon Screen Trueflow, while Artwork Systems Nexus, Dalim Twist, and Heidelberg MetaDimensions 3.5 performed almost as well, with scores above 95%.

The event's producers, MediaLive International, plan to hold six to eight geographically targeted Seybold Seminars events worldwide by the end of 2004, with a New York City-based event scheduled for December 3-5 this year.