Wired Magazine Cancels NextFest
In another casualty of the ad downturn, Wired magazine is canceling NextFest, its annual tech expo.
NextFest launched in 2004 in San Francisco, where Wired is based, and took place in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago in subsequent years. Its backers have included blue-chippers General Electric, Hewlett-Packard and Toyota. The event has also generated dozens of ad pages for Wired.
But as advertisers have traded big, multiple-sponsor programs for pared-down ones, magazines have canceled some of their tent-pole events. Along those lines, Wired parent Condé Nast canceled Fashion Rocks and Movies Rock events, its marquee cross-platform marketing programs, for 2009.
A Wired rep said the magazine was adjusting its advertiser programs to suit market conditions and that it would reevaluate bringing back NextFest in the future.
It’s been a tough year for all magazines, but Wired has been hit harder in print than most of its peers. This year through its August issue, ad pages were off 44 percent to 369, per the Mediaweek Monitor.
