And they did. Lots of folks on a beautiful summery day in NYC.
There were bunches of cool things to see, and the crowd didn’t seem to mind that most hot news had been announced pre-show.
Putting your hands onto the gear you may buy is still the best way to decide on a purchase.
It is about 1/3 smaller and lots of the stalwart companies have not appeared: Adobe, Apple, Fuji, and Calumet to name just a few of the usual suspects, although this in not the first year passing for some. Construction at the Javits Center was given as the reason for the diminished floor space,
The walkaways feel smaller and the traffic denser, with some booths, like Mid West Photo, and B&H having a constant stream of paying customers. So is the recession a notion of the past?
The pricier items are still being shopped pretty heavily, so the product demos are even more out front. One foot product company even hustled folks into sitting, trying, and customizing, shoe pads.
Our dogs were barking, but don’t make them bite.

here are some quick snaps of the day:

Above: At the Nikon booth, folks got a hands on feel for the gear; Moo, the #1 photographers business card company, had a new way to show more.

Sony put camera in the hands of attendees and let the BMX’ers tear it up.

more photos after the jump.

An old idea in a new package, Steadepod helps shooters stop the shakes.

Scott Kelby, the current king of digital photo teaching, made his rounds and brought his affable style to various booths.

The finger is pointing to the ultra tiny Lexar 32 gb Echo SE, backup module. “Plug and Stay” is what they call it.

ICP.org had a smaller store, but some very cool things for the Holiday Gift List: how about a Brownie camera tree ornament? under $16.00

A new designer out of the UK, was quietly showing off their latest carbon fiber, ultra portable tripod with a perfect ball head. OK, close to perfect

Dan Havlik of PDN, MC’d the Tweet-up and gave out some very cool prizes to those who came.

All of the booths had folks more than happy to show everyone the goods, and explain the benifits.

Of course, as usual, B&H photo had buses to transport buyers right to their store for the show specials they had to have.

More tomorrow.