Nobody in the vendor community believes that. One claimed a quick count showed there were only 3,000 seats for the keynotes. Word on the floor was 1,700 to 2,500. Perhaps more revealing, there were only five people in line at Starbucks in the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. When I walked from the La Quinta Hotel to the center it looked like there were more people working with the buses that waiting buses. People who took buses talked about them having few as three passengers or less. But the parties are probably as good a measure. There last-ever Randy and Andy s Party—the last because Andy Vabulas is retiring—was hardly packed. Party Mainstay Avalara did not have a party on its own. It went in on party called Bourbon Bash that was notably empty. Dynamics reseller Charles Coe, who has historically rented a suite in the Royal Sonesta to provide a Bourbon Street balcony for a bash at Microsoft conferences also came up way short from the crowd usually present to throw beads to passers-by
ENVISION—EMPTY BUSES, PARTIES Featured
I quipped that parts of the exhibit floor at Microsoft Envision this week had sounds from coyotes howling. And if you have been to a lot of shows, you know the symptoms of that kind of emptiness—exhibitors talking to each other; pacing, leaning against things. But one that I had not picked up on before was the most prevalent—people in their booths with their hands in their pockets. Microsoft's chief marketing officer Chris Caposella told those in the main arena that more than 6,000 people attended the Convergence replacement.
