Macworld to return to Boston

IDG Expo Management said today that the East Coast venue for Macworld will return next year to Boston, where it has been held every year except this year since the inaugural event in 1984.

Matt Hutchison, a spokesman for IDG Expos, said the three-day Macworld conference is slated for August 4-6, 1999, at the World Trade Center-Seaport Hotel complex in Boston.

The Mac bonanza is being held this week in New York for the first time. Mac loyalists have been congregating at the Jacob Javits Center since Tuesday. Hutchison said Apple Computer chose the Big Apple as its venue because it wanted to reach out to New York's publishing establishment, arts and entertainment industry, digital content professionals, and new media ventures in Silicon Alley.

"In an attempt to cater to Apple and several of their vendors, the show was re-created in New York," Hutchison said. "It gave us an expanded reach to an emerging market?and New York provides a lot of consumer exposure, which dovetailed nicely with Apple's introduction of the iMac."

"While we're going back to Boston, that doesn't mean we're turning our back on New York, either," Hutchison added. "What we want to do is take our new audience base and marry that with the tradition in Boston."

The twice-annual Macworld will return to San Francisco from January 4-8, as scheduled, for its once-a-year West Coast appearance.