After hearing crazy rumors galore, I've finally found the hard data on the
attendance at DVcon 2009.

  "According to the folks at MP Associates, conference attendance
   was 668 this year, down from 804 last year (a 17% drop).

   However, in both years about 450 of those attendees were exhibitors
   or people who otherwise attended for free.  That means this year
   there were about 218 paid attendees vs. 354 last year, a 38% drop
   in paid attendance."

       - JL Gray of Verilab who blogs on CoolVerification.com

I knew the numbers were down, but not by how much.

I've also heard that DesignCon 2009's attendance was also equally down by
roughly 40% this year, but that's just estimates I heard from people who
went to it; NOT from any official DesignCon people.

    - John Cooley
      DeepChip.com                               Holliston, MA