Toyko: Expo looks to be the biggest yet
By Dennis Sellers
Macworld FEB 23, 2001 4:00 pm PST
Although official figures aren't yet available from IDG Japan, apparently Macworld Tokyo 2001 will be the biggest yet. Over 200,000 attendees were anticipated, which would break last year's record of 180,000 — which itself broke the 1999 attendance mark of 170,000.
Unofficial figures estimate over 50,000 attendees for both Thursday and Friday. Saturday, Feb. 24, was the biggest day despite the rain. Many Mac users brought their families, and workers unable to take off earlier make an appearance. Over 120,000 folks were expected on the last day of the expo. If these figures hold up, over 220,000 people will have dropped by, not counting repeat visitors.
The flip side of the coin is that the number of vendors is down from last year. The expo floor was relatively small compared to January's Macworld San Francisco and even Macworld New York 2000. Apparently, there are so many trade shows in Japan that many vendors are choosing to go to such cross platform events as the enormous PC Expo.
Despite this, the Mac is flourishing. There are approximately a dozen Mac print publications and User groups abound. There's even a Tokyo Mac user group for English speakers: the Ringo mug ("ringo" being the Japanese word for Apple).