In its third year, APEX attracted more than 11,000 total visitors (attendees and exhibitors) to the San Diego Convention Center, which housed 559 booths covering more than 212,200 square feet of exhibit space.
The APEX professional development courses welcomed nearly 1,000 participants, while 900 people attended the technical conference.
"In light of our industry's current state, APEX 2002 was a very successful show," said IPC President Denny McGuirk. "As expected, attendance numbers were down a bit from last year, but the message I received all week from both exhibitors and attendees was that everyone was impressed with the quality of the show, as well as the conferences and the workshops."
S. Michael Buscher, IPC SMEMA Council's new chairman, concurred with McGuirk. "While it seemed companies had indeed scaled back on the number of people they sent to the show, there was an excellent cross section of large and small OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] and EMS [electronics manufacturing services] companies. There also seemed to be excitement in the air, which will hopefully lead to new equipment orders over the next 11 months."
APEX 2003 will take place March 31-April 2, 2003, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA.
"Many analysts are predicting an upturn in the electronics industry by the second half of 2002," added McGuirk. "We're excited about the outlook and anticipate an outstanding 2003 in our new venue in Anaheim."
For more information, visit http://www.GoAPEX.org or contact IPC Communications Manager Joe Dudeck at JoeDudeck@ipc.org or 847-790-5371.