Ziff Davis Media Cancels Tech Event

Ziff Davis Media has cancelled this year’s DigitalLife Expo, an annual technology trade show it produces in partnership with PC Magazine. The event had been scheduled for September 25 to 28 in New York.

Paul O’Reilly, vice president of Ziff’s event marketing group, attributed the decision to poor economic conditions. “We couldn’t get the event to the size and scale of previous years,” O’Reilly told FOLIO:. “We just weren’t confident that we could do the brand justice.”

Ziff pulled the plug on the event after speaking with its major sponsors. “We were upfront and open about that, especially with sponsors and exhibitors,” O’Reilly said. “After several discussions, everyone felt that they wanted to pass on a smaller event this year and focus on building the show up again next year.”

Ziff’s DigitalLife Expo launched in 2004 and attracted 24,000 attendees. In 2006, according to O’Reilly, the event had grown to 50,000 attendees.

Ziff Davis Media, which also publishes Electronic Gaming magazine and ExtremeTech.com, filed for bankruptcy protection in March as part of a debt restructuring plan. In June, the publisher announced that a New York court confirmed its reorganization plan, and that it expected to emerge from bankruptcy protection this summer.

O’Reilly says Ziff is hoping to work with its sponsors to produce the DigitalLife Expo next fall. “Nothing is certain, yet, but we hope to bring it back in 2009. Also, we’re looking at the same timeframe, which is great for launching new products and games.”

COMMENTS: 3

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DigitalLife Cancelation

Submitted by Tom Hogan, Sr, Information Today, Inc. on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 16:03.

Wow, as a publisher and trade show organizer, I can only imagine what the cancelation fees will be at the Javits and various hotels that were involved. Must be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Things must have been pretty bad to make the decision to cancel. I feel their pain.

Henry Dicker could make it successful

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 16:18.

If ZIFF D had trade show guru Henry Dicker running that show it would not have been cancelled. He catapulted Legal Tech to stardom. The guy is a genius!

Good Decision

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 09/04/2008 - 13:03.

Its a proud decision which one has taken. While these events companies build properties to serve and influence the community, on the other hand sponsors do not support them. Tough times are faced by all but when it can get real business deals for companies, then why they step back on spends, this question remains unanswered as the marketing stops here and jobs of marketing personnel plays a major role. An example: Why most of the CIOs use CISCO as their infrastructure/Telecom/networking partner? Its because, if the CIOs decision of CISCO does not yield results or it fails, then the blame is on trend and not on CISCO as most of the CIOs go with CISCO...making the CIOs job a safe zone. Similarly, all companies or rather marketing personnels bet on some evergreen events at this time so that they do not face the question of failure on their decision... If the large event sponsorship does not give returns, then the blame is on economy and not the individuals analytical skills...The true lies in taking risks which yields more results but the job of the marketing guy is more important than his/her's organization growth... Supporting in tough times proves ones ability to take risk and with a group of such safe players, the economy will continue to suffer and the blame is on poor economy and trend...the true culprit is the one who hold these budgets for safe play.

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