Hearing from many that aren't going this year,especially from Europe and other long distance travellers. Louisville not an attractive venue ,safety concerns and of course the weather are putting people off. Even US visitors are likely to be down...no big operators in the area either and so far xhobitor numbers down too.
The story goes that HAI were offered the venue free of charge or at least heavily subsidised and new marketing personnel have adopted a hard line policy to maximise income. Perhaps they've been taking lessons from Helitech ! Time will tell and not long to go.