Atlanta as CEDIA Expo Host: Love it or Hate it?

I’m from near New Orleans. I’m not commenting because it would be so easy for me to get to a conference in the city, but I would like to see this conference travel to different areas. Come to New Orleans! We have a massive convention center, plenty of places to see and well… Bourbon Street too!

I think it’s a shame that the entire West side of the city seemed to be under construction—probably gave a bad impression from the outset, not helped in the least by the highway also being under major construction.  Atlanta’s no picnic when it comes to the traffic and congestion, but I take exception to everyone complaining that it’s not Denver.  Atlanta is a major metro city, much larger than Denver, and usually hosts numerous big events simultaneously.  It’s an excellent city to eat in, take in the arts, see numerous games, etc.  A little research on Yelp or Citysearch can easily guide you to where the locals go.  All within a few blocks of the congress center.

Atlanta wasn’t bad, but as an exhibitor, it was frustrating to be pre-empted by the Falcons game when trying to buy parking passes for Sunday.  It also seemed like the walk from the parking lots was at least 15 minutes, which wasn’t the case in Denver.

Denver is definitely the superior city for a show like this - it’s nice to drive into the mountains, and I like the restaurants out there.

It was a regional show since it was so far on the east coast. There were many people from California, Nevada, Washington and Oregon that chose not to go. It would be best if it was in the middle somewhere to make it more of a draw for everyone. Dallas, Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, St.Louis.

I thought Indianapolis was bad, Atlanta was far worse!  First off who designed the entrance of the convention center facing an empty field and a power sub station?  Why couldn’t we walk outside and instantly find a restaurant to go to instead of that horrible Papa John’s pizza they had??

All of the hotels (even the ones that are close) seemed like a 20 minute walk!  You started to cab it everywhere until you realized that a cab ride 2 blocks was 10 dollars!  I feel sorry for the D&M;Holdings companies that were held up in the Embassy suites had no visitors because no one wanted to walk there!

The quality of food there was not very good at all unless you like everything fried or your a die hard red meat eater.

How many more years of Atlanta do we have to take??

TexasRadio is definitely right. Being in Oregon it was hard to justify that trip, and that’s the general consensus from everybody else I know in the region.

I have to agree with paul, everything was a 20 minute walk, even if you were walking from training to the expo.

But if you walked “25 minutes” to the CNN center, there were a lot of fast food restaurants to choose from even a vegetarian.

unfortunately we still have at least a year left in Atlanta. so lets prepare for next year.

I have to disagree with West-Coaster. I’m from the Dominican Republic, and I couldn’t justify it either, but I went anyways, because of what it represents to my business. Same thing goes to my friends that traveled all the way from spain, bolivia, nicaragua, and mexico.

It’s an investment no matter where it is, and no matter how horrible the host city is. Like Atlanta was. 

There are lost of ways you can justify your trip there. just dig deep and you’ll find it.

Why does CEDIA have another year left in ATL? Is there some sort of contract?

You nailed it Paul. BTW: If you wanted good food close by, you could have always gone to one of the local Klan BBQ’s.

Not a fan of the ATL this year. The aquarium was fantastic, but the rest of the city seems like it’s had better days. Denver was central, clean, and the food was good. In the future I’d rather see the expo in Denver, Chicago, New York or Las Vegas.

Cedia used the available facilities poorly.  Why was the main floor in building C, the furthest from anyting?  It appeared that the show could have been contained in Halls A and B, making it much more convenient for walking. Training in building A was a solid twenty minute walk from the main floor. At least do a little more realistic planning for next year.  Please!

I am not a fan of Atlanta at all and found the GWCC extremely confusing and WAY too big. The amount of walking to just get around was ridiculous. And the last day coinciding with the Falcon’s game was a nightmare.

CEDIA needs to be in a central location- Vegas, Denver, Dalls, New Orleans, etc., so people from each coast have equal opportunity to go.

I am from Brazil and I had no complains on Atlanta as a city. In fact a very good city with good restaurants, excellent shopping malls, good attractions as the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, the CNN and a very efficient public transportation system: Marta Rail System. The Marta station is very near from the main entrance of B building, so you could reach Peachtree street in a few minutes. I was in a hotel near the airport and could reach the Georgia WCC in less than half an hour with confort and safety, for US$1.75. A seven day pass fare for US$13.00 is a bargain, isn’t it? The unique problem was the walking distance from the A and B convention center main entrance to the show floors. Really a huge walking distance and a loss of time!

AVGuy - Vegas is a “central location”? Not for the East Cost, it isn’t. Fact is, Atlanta is the busiest airport in the US and has more direct flights than almost any other city. “Central” and “easy to get to” are not synonymous.

Also, I don’t get the whining about walking 20 minutes to get to something that you plan to spend several hours (per day) attending. It’s a convention center - of course it’s big. Move it Halls A & B and cut the time in half. Most of us could stand to walk more, anyway.

I’m an Atlantan and am well aware of the city’s flaws, but I take exception to the lack of restaurants. Problem is, they’re not downtown…