Subject: Oops! DAC Exec Committee caught double counting 1,554 attendees

For past X years after each DAC, the DAC Exec Committee would issue a
press release in the following form:

     "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
      blah blah blah blah blah 44th DAC blah blah blah blah 2007.

                 Full Conference Attendees: 2,648
                    Exhibit-Only Attendees: 2,052
          Exhibitors, visitors, and guests: 4,204
                                     Total: 8,904

      blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"

The DAC 2008 press release:

     "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
      blah blah blah blah blah 45th DAC blah blah blah blah 2008.

                 Full Conference Attendees: 2,382
                    Exhibit-Only Attendees: 1,842
          Exhibitors, visitors, and guests: 3,543
                                     Total: 7,766

      blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"

Last year's DAC 2009 press release:

     "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
      blah blah blah blah blah 46th DAC blah blah blah blah 2009.

                 Full Conference Attendees: 1,962
                    Exhibit-Only Attendees: 3,337
          Exhibitors, visitors, and guests: 2,697
                                     Total: 7,996

      blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"

And as usual, for this year's DAC 2010 in Anaheim, they issued:

     "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
      blah blah blah blah blah 47th DAC blah blah blah blah 2010.

           Total Full Conference Attendees: 1,554
                   Total Exhibit Attendees: 3,444
          Exhibitors, visitors, and guests: 2,557
                                     Total: 6,001

      blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"

By this time, I (and a whole bunch of other EDA followers) were like
trained monkeys trained to ignore the bulk of the press release and to
just seek out those 4 magic numbers.

BUT WAIT A MINUTE!!!

Did you catch that slight little change that the DAC Exec Committee had
quietly tried to slip in this year???   (I didn't, but 18 of my DeepChip
readers did.  Gotta love them engineers!  They eat/sleep/breathe numbers.)

Instead of "Exhibit-Only Attendees", they're suddenly now counting "Total
Exhibit Attendees" -- and because all Full Conference Attendees since the
dawn of DAC history have been able to walk on the exhibit floor for free,
they ADDED the "Full Conference Attendees" to "Exhibit-Only Attendees" to
get this new number of "Total Exhibit Attendees".

In short, they double counted 1,554 DAC attendees this year.

So here's last year's DAC 2009 press release:

     "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
      blah blah blah blah blah 46th DAC blah blah blah blah 2009.

                 Full Conference Attendees: 1,962
                    Exhibit-Only Attendees: 3,337
          Exhibitors, visitors, and guests: 2,697
                                     Total: 7,996

      blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"

And here's what the CORRECTED DAC 2010 press release would look like:

     "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
      blah blah blah blah blah 47th DAC blah blah blah blah 2010.

                 Full Conference Attendees: 1,554  - 20.8%
                    Exhibit-Only Attendees: 1,890  - 43.4%
          Exhibitors, visitors, and guests: 2,557   - 5.2%
                                     Total: 6,001  - 24.9%

      blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"

Why the games?  It's my opinion that the DAC Exec Committee was trying to
hide the painful fact that even though the number of exhibitors had stayed
fairly constant at ~2,600 people this year, THE OVERALL DAC *ATTENDEE*
NUMBERS (1,962 + 3,337) - (1,554 + 1,890) WERE DOWN A COMBINED 35% !!!

Ouch.

    - John Cooley
      DeepChip.com                               Holliston, MA

P.S. And again, thanks to those 18 readers who caught this when I didn't.