If you take the Sears Tower from Chicago and lay it down inside the Orange County Convention Center expo hall in Orlando, there would be room to spare. That’s just how long the show floor is, HIMSS officials said.

There were more than 440,000 square feet of pulsing, surging, health IT excitement emanating from thousands of voices and machines and blenders and TV monitors at HIMSS14 this year. The show floor opened on Monday afternoon with more than 1233 exhibitors raring to go. 

According to HIMSS, the total registration numbers for HIMSS14 as of Tuesday morning was 36,973, compared to 33,763 on the same day last year.

Verna Lynch, senior consultant of the Management and IT Consulting group at New England-based BerryDunn said the show traffic is about the same she has seen in past years. BerryDunn is an accounting and consulting firm that aims to help healthcare executives navigate the tough regulatory environment and other complexities of their business. Lynch said this year’s booth visitors were most concerned about the ICD-10 transition.

Elsewhere in the hall, Kent Dicks, CEO of Alere Connect was giving a presentation to more than 20 onlookers at the unique-shaped arched tunnel of Alere’s booth. Alere’s mission is to empower individuals to take charge of their health under the supervision of their healthcare providers.

“About 60 million people in the U.S. have one or more chronic diseases,” Dicks said. “The numbers are starting to go off the charts, that’s why we’re having this conference here today,” he told attendees at the booth, who were listening attentively.

Debra Boston with CenterPlate, a food service provider at the conference, was blending up smoothies for Alere’s booth. “It never gets boring,” she said of working shows. “You get to see and be exposed to everything around in every direction.”