APEX moves to Las Vegas

The conference and exhibition will take place April 1–3, while other meetings and programs begin March 29. “We are excited about moving our events to Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Mandalay Bay is a world-class convention center and hotel with sufficient space for the exhibition, technical conference and standard development committee meetings," Denny McGuirk, president of IPC said. McGuirk explained that the change to Las Vegas was in response to the IPC Printed Circuits Expo and APEX exhibitors and attendees. “We listened to our members and they expressed their dissatisfaction with Los Angeles as a venue for our events. We were fortunate that Mandalay Bay dates recently became available." The move to Las Vegas has been unanimously approved by the IPC Board of Directors, the IPC PCB Suppliers Management Council and the IPC SMEMA Management Council steering committees and their two trade show subcommittees. “In 2007, Los Angeles was really our only viable option when other convention cities like San Diego and Las Vegas had no available dates," said Jeffrey Timms, chairman of the APEX trade show subcommittee and vice president of Sales & Marketing Americas, Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc., Electronics Assembly Systems. “Today, we've been presented with a very positive option that should impact attendance very favorably. This, combined with attendee feedback and exhibitor input, reaffirm that it makes sense to make this move at this time." This is not the first time IPC has held an event in Las Vegas. IPC held its IPCWorks® program of conference and standards development meetings in October 2005 in Las Vegas and experienced very strong attendance. Statistics from a recent survey conducted by Exhibit Surveys Inc., an independent research firm, support the move. Eighty-seven percent of the trade shows participating in the survey experienced an increase in attendance when their respective events moved from another city to Las Vegas. “The L.A. convention center is state-of-the-art, but the city doesn't yet meet our members' needs. We must remain focused on holding a successful event, and for now, that means a move to Las Vegas, “ McGuirk concluded.