According to recently released data, 12 percent more people attended IBC2004 than did last year’s convention with the greatest increase in number of attendees coming from the Netherlands. The greatest percentage increase by nation was among IBC attendees from Romania.
Post-convention statistics compiled by event organizers show that 40,776 people attended this year’s IBC convention. Of those, 28,693 were regarded as visitors and 12,083 were exhibitors. Those figures compare with a total 2003 attendance of 36,395, of which 25,175 were visitors and 11,181 were exhibitors.
Western Europe and Scandinavia attendees and exhibitors dominated IBC2004. A total of 73.76 percent came from the region–compared with 74.02 percent last year. By region, North America’s show presence ranked second with 7.19 percent followed closely by the Asia and Pacific region with 7.1 percent.
Central Europe accounted for 5 percent; Eastern Europe 3.49 percent; and the Middle East 2.27 percent. Combined, South America and Africa accounted for less than 2 percent of total attendance.
The strongest growth in attendance in terms of pure numbers of attendees came from the Netherlands with 8541 attendees, up 1696 from last year’s figure. The UK came in second with 7626 attendees -446 more than last year. France was third with 364 more French attending than last year. The United States and Germany ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, in terms of pure growth in attendance.
In terms of percentage of growth, Romania topped the list with a 103 percent increase over the number of attendees who visited IBC2003. Brazil was second with a 75 percent increase, followed by the Ukraine at 43.4 percent, Egypt at 40.3 percent and Slovakia, Turkey and the Republic of Korea each with 33 percent growth.
A measure of attendance by job function showed that 28 percent of attendees were technical, almost 18 percent were involved with sales and marketing, nearly 19 percent were corporate management and about 10 percent were operations.
By company activity, broadcasting at the station and network level dominated the show, accounting for 18.7 percent of all attendees. At about 11.5 percent, dealers and distributors accounted for the second largest group of attendees. Others included: post production, about 10 percent; production, 8.5 percent; consulting and manufacturing each with about 6 percent; and cable and satellite distribution with nearly 5 percent.
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