RSNA 2008 attendance dips 5%

By AuntMinnie.com staff writers

December 9, 2008 -- No, you weren't imagining things -- traffic at last week's RSNA meeting in Chicago did seem lighter than usual. But predictions of a calamitous drop in attendance failed to materialize, at least according to the Oak Brook, IL, society's official figures.

Through Friday December 5, the RSNA reported total unaudited attendance of 58,795, down 5% compared with 61,980 at the same time period for the 2007 meeting. Total audited attendance for the 2007 show was 62,501 (audited figures for the 2008 meeting are not yet available).

The difficult economy may have affected companies exhibiting at the conference, as exhibitor attendance showed a 12% drop to 24,683 exhibitor attendees, compared with 28,054 in 2007.

On the bright side, professional attendance at this year's meeting only dipped 1% to 27,586 attendees, compared with 27,846 at the 2007 meeting. The number of guest attendees jumped 7% to 6,526, compared with 6,080 in 2007.