Today’s terrorist attacks caused major
disruptions at Networld+Interop, the networking and
telecommunications trade show held at Atlanta’s
Georgia World Congress Center, causing most attendees
and many exhibitors to cut short their time at the
show.
Show officials have since said the Networld+Interop exhibit floor will close at 2
p.m. EST. All other functions, including seminars,
will remain open.
Organizers had expected 50,000 attendees at the
show, but as of noon today the show floor was a
virtual ghost town. Many of the remaining attendees
were huddled around television screens, monitoring
live news coverage of the unfolding events.
The main cause for anxiety by attendees wasn’t
necessarily the potential of attack at the show
itself, but rather the physical location of the show.
CNN Center is across the street from the Georgia World
Congress Center, and at 10 a.m. CNN closed the
building to the public and sent home all personnel not
directly working on stories related to the attacks.
In addition, show organizers halted all freight
deliveries to the show. “We have stopped all freight
deliveries because of this,” Bill Miller, director of
administrative services for the center, told the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Web site. “We are
maintaining close communication with the Atlanta
Police Department and consistent communications with
our security officers.”