Internet Retailer Conference returns to Chicago for its 2008 show
Internet Retailer announced today that its fourth annual conference—Internet Retailer 2008 Conference & Exhibition—will be held June 9-12, 2008, in Chicago, where IRCE started in 2005. The conference, which is the world’s largest e-retailing trade show, will take place at the new McCormick Place West, which opened in August. More than 4,500 e-retailers from around the world are expected to attend the event.
“We are thrilled to bring IRCE 2008 back to Chicago, one of America’s truly great cities and one that is easily reached via direct flights from every major market in the U.S.,” says Jack Love, publisher of Internet Retailer. The IRCE 2007 show in San Jose last June attracted 4,100 e-retail industry participants, but, Love adds, “with the rave reviews we received from attendees for content and the management of our show in San Jose and given Chicago’s central location, I am hoping attendance at IRCE 2008 will hit 5,000.”
McCormick Place West is the fourth major convention facility to be opened at Chicago’s famed McCormick Center, the country’s largest convention complex. The new conference center boasts 61 meeting rooms, including a 103,000-square-foot ballroom that will be used for all 71 conference sessions scheduled for IRCE 2008. The ballroom, the second largest in the U.S., will be divided into three separate rooms for IRCE, including a general session room that will seat more than 5,000 attendees.
McCormick West also offers an impressive 470,000 square feet of exhibit space, and IRCE will use half of that, including 130,000 square feet for its Exhibit Hall. With that, the IRCE 2008 Exhibit Hall will have 44% more space than the Exhibit Hall at IRCE 2007. Internet Retailer expects to sell 437 10’x10’-equivalent booths at IRCE 2008 compared to 345 for last June’s show. Another 100,000 square feet of space will be used for sit-down lunches during the conference. “Once again,” says Love, “IRCE 2008 will host the largest display of e-retailing solutions ever assembled under one roof, more exhibits than all other e-retailing shows combined.”
The Exhibit Hall at the new McCormick West is located directly across the concourse from the ballroom. “That means the conference sessions and the exhibit hall are situated on the same floor,” says Love “Moving between them is simply a matter of walking across the hall that separates them. It’s ideal for an event like ours that stresses the importance of both the conference and the exhibition.”
Back...
