We´re off to the annual Stock Photo Industry Freak Show, the european CEPIC Congress 2006 in Biarritz, France. With over 737 delegates and 414 companies from 51 countries it´s by far the most important meeting in this industry in the world.
It´s more than only an european event, and has significatly more attendees than the recently held PACA conference.The CEPIC Congress starts officially on June 7th (view the program here and compare it to the PACA meeting schedule).
Earlier CEPIC conventions were held in Budapest (2002), Lisbon (2003), Copenhagen (2004) and Prague (2005). However, the question remains why the CEPIC decided in the past that the next 2006 congress should take place in a small village nearly 500 miles away from Paris, somehow at the end of the world for those delegates arriving from Japan or Mexico.
Paris would have been perfectly fine this time. Hopefully the next CEPIC event will not be held in Ulan Bator, Outer Mongolia.
The number of delegates did not continue to increase at the same speed like in the previous years: from 446 (Budapest) over 550 (Lisbon) and 625 (Copenhagen) to 768 delegates last year in Prague. Currently 737 delegates have signed up for the upcoming event in Biarritz.
Off season Biarritz has about 30,000 inhabitants. The CEPIC recommended on a special section of their website to call one of the 25 taxis hanging around in Biarritz (hopefully there are more during the height of the season) and to order a Thalassotherapy treatment ("treatment includes a combination of seawater, algae and mud"). 25 taxis for over 700 delegates and Thalassotherapy sounds like an unbeatable and irresistible offer.
There won´t be tons of new posts here over the next days, unless Corbis sells its business to Getty Images, something that will presumably not be announced during this congress. Finally, it´s a pleasure to stay off internet, the Web 2.0 hype and the "We are very excited" slang of press releases at least a couple of days in the year. Like with the CEPIC congress last year, more to come soon about the seminars, the latest gossip and new exciting developments, like below.
© Image:
Faez Alidousti, Ali Hashemi Shahrak, Esmail Abbasi and Mohammad Ali Baniasadi, the four members of the Executive Board of the Iranian Association of Picture Agencies (IAPA),
the most powerful association of this kind in the world, are preparing
a presentation in their native language about the last problems of retro diametric keywording
in Arabic, to be held at the CEPIC conference. The presentation will be
simultaneously translated into the african swahili, the icelandic and
the marrocean idiom, kindly supported by uber journalist Don Farfelloni of Abouttheimages in the background who blacked out the room.
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