Was planning to go this year, missed last few, but it did not work out. Like meeting NinjaTrader team in person.
Nice! Who else was there? I have been told lots of MLM Amway and vacumn cleaner sales job recruiter types had booths to sell to the remnants of the trading community---
Most of the workshops and booths were training focused as majority of attendees were retail traders/beginners. There was a decent chunk of traders who swung around over the course of the 3 days - guys with records from WTS, Bright, Quasar, FNY. Sponsors: CBOE, Futures Institute, Merrill Edge, Fidelity, Nadex, NYSE, TD Ameritrade, TradeStation Others: CFTC, eSignal, AMP Global, Barchart.com, Day Trading Radio, Forbes Media, Hold, NFA, OptionsHouse, WallStreet Raw Radio Not included on this list: some 20 or so squawk boxes, training companies (i.e. “Blue Collar Investing Corp.”), magazines, white label software companies, charting software providers, fin tech trading startups, etc.
What do you learn there that you couldn't find online? Or who do you meet there that you wouldn't be able to contact online?
For exhibitors, there was no one you couldn't contact online. May be helpful to get a feel of the people manning the booth as representative of the company, but that is a personal preference. Some of the speakers were pretty good, but most catering towards retail/new traders.
I used to be a regular at these events but stopped going years ago when most of the information became available from online resources. But I have attended a couple times in recent years when I had a strong interest to personally meet an individual who I knew to be speaking at the show, e.g. an author or software developer, and I wanted to ask them a specific question and engage in a brief discussion.