MacLive fills void left by Macworld Expo on the east coast

Macworld Expo called it quits in New York and subsequently in Boston after struggling for several years to make the show worthwhile for both exhibitors and attendees. I, for one, was not surprised, nor disappointed when they finally euthanized it. Still, what's an east coast Mac user to do now? Not everyone can afford to head west for the San Francisco Macworld. Enter the first annual MacLive Conference, which will be held in New York City next spring, in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center – the very spot Macworld used to be before it was abruptly taken to Boston to die.

Billed as the "Learning Conference for Creative Professionals," MacLive, organized by Scott Kelby of Layers Magazine (formerly Mac Design), will kick off with a keynote by everyone's favorite evangelist, Guy Kawasaki and will run from May 11-13, 2006.

Other MacNotables who will grace the conference include David Pogue, Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus, and Chris Breen. The conference will feature training sessions on Tiger, and there will be complete training tracks for Photoshop, Illustrator, Final Cut Pro,
InDesign, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, and Flash as well as iLife apps, the iPod & Podcasting.

A full conference pass is only $499 and a student pass is only $149, making it an affordable event for all. While there will be no booth-lined "expo floor" as we're used to with Macworld, the training tracks promise to make up for the lack of vendor swag.