Jacksonville technology attorney Scott Draughon travels frequently to speak at corporate meetings, business gatherings and technology trade shows. The road to many of these events is less traveled since the September 11th attacks. "It's impacting shows and attendance", Draughon told reporter Tami McClaran of The Business Journal of Jacksonville. "Attendance is down as much as fifty percent and at one show I was at one of the speakers canceled because he didn't want to travel since the September 11th attacks." Two of Draughon's scheduled speaking engagements, Internet World in New York and the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals in Chicago, were postponed and rescheduled because of the attacks.

Tradeshow Week Magazine reports nearly half of the trade shows scheduled between September 11th and the first week of October were postponed or rescheduled. Draughon has spoken at several shows since September 11th and said all had changed security procedures.

The economic impact of the canceled shows is still to be determined but there are reports the convention industry lost $1.5 billion dollars in September. That figure does not include the losses in hotel and travel sales.