Wow, really the end of an era. Sometimes shows fail due to the end of a technology (steam engines?) and some due to its success (e.g. NCC, West Coast Computer Faire, and now CeBIT).

I only attended once. It was by far the largest show I'd attended, bigger even than (by far) shows like CES or the Frankfurt Auto Messe. It was so big that the daily fliers of stuff vendors needed to know were distributed by postmen/postwomen. Yes every booth had its own postal address!