Attendance at this year's conference was strong with a total of 19,536 registrants divided into 45% exhibitors and 55% conferees,
students, and media. This represents about a 12% drop in total attendance compared with last year's Chicago venue, a trend
that is consistent with previous years: each time the conference has moved south attendance has gone down slightly compared
to the year before. Interestingly, the total number of technical sessions increased in 2008 by about 20% compared to 2007,
which also is consistent with the trend in recent years and indicates that the drop in attendance did not come from conferees
who presented or participated in the multitudinous papers and posters. The technical sessions remain a strong attractor for
Pittcon, along with the exhibitors and their booths on the convention floor. Next year, the conference returns to Chicago
to celebrate its 60th anniversary.
Gas Chromatography at Pittcon 2008
Last year was a banner year for new gas chromatography (GC) instrument introductions at Pittcon. Predictably, because so many
companies had expended so much effort the year before, this year's crop of new instruments was smaller, but still significant.
The GC business is going strong. In addition to this year's crop of brand-new instruments, companies promoted their existing
systems in a variety of creative ways including application-specific initiatives, new or improved accessories, and upgraded
software. I have added supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) instruments and accessories to this year's list — there was
significant activity in this area and, while it is neither GC nor liquid chromatography (LC), SFC arguably falls closer to
GC.
This annual "GC Connections" installment reviews GC instrumentation and accessories shown at this year's Pittcon, and I also
will include some products from Analytica in Munich the first week of April; some of the entries were introduced earlier,
in 2007. For a review of new chromatography columns and accessories, please see "Column Watch" in the March and April 2008
issues of LCGC (1,2). The information presented here is based upon manufacturers' replies to questionnaires, as well as on additional information
from manufacturers' press releases, websites and product literature. During the conference, I took the time to walk around
the convention aisles and see some of the new products firsthand as well as discover a number of items that were not covered
by the questionnaires. Every effort has been made to collect accurate information, but due to the preliminary nature of some
of the material, LCGC cannot be responsible for errors or omissions. This article cannot be considered to be a complete record of all new GC products
shown at this year's Pittcon because not all manufacturers chose to respond to the questionnaire, nor is all of the submitted
information included here due to the limited available space and the editor's judgment as to its suitability.
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