Remember being a kid and having the circus come to town? Well for those in the creative and media communications fields, Adobe’s CS3 Tour aims to give the same type of thrill.

But with all that is truly new, like the iPhone and other products, could new releases of old products really change our lives much? Adobe’s media machine has been in full swing telling us the answer is yes. And many of us have been getting very excited with what they have been promising.

Adobe has been very active. First we saw the gobbling up of Macromedia last year which added many new applications to their portfolio. In descending order of industry impact is Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks. There was also the last minute acquisition of Serious Magic, the super-hot video developer. And finally the introduction of at least one brand new application in Soundbooth.

So when Adobe announced it was coming to town with their CS3 dog and pony show, I wanted tickets. I attended their New York event which was the tour’s final stop and held at the renowned Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The choice of venue backed up what they had been saying in their media promotions–they were serious and meant business. CS3 is a big release for them.

First a note about the unique setting. The elegant Waldorf is everything one expects of an American classic built in 1931. The sessions were held in large and small ballrooms with swooping drapery and dripping chandeliers. Tapestries and Victorian scenics on the walls all made for a pleasant atmosphere. A marked departure from the Holiday Inn venues where the only thing Venetian are the blinds that don’t work. The entire event was also catered by the hotel, with continental breakfasts and a lunch nicer than many wedding receptions.

The event was divided up into five different education tracks: Web, Design, Video, Print and Pro Photo. Many of these tracks did indeed have a good deal of crossover, and the attendees were free to sit in on any session.

Both New York and Los Angeles were scheduled for a two day event, while the remaining 6 cities only got one day each. I did not addend the first day as the scheduled events appeared to be more promotional. Instead I came for the second day which had most of the seminars. I believe this made my experience more like those in other cities (aside from the Waldorf lunch perhaps).

As we can only be in one place at one time I opted to mostly follow the Video track of seminars. These were reasonably well attended and it wasn’t until later in the day that I realized how much larger the Web and print seminars were, perhaps 8-10 times as many attendees. Ok, I am niche.

Unlike seminars one may attend at expos and Siggraph where speakers are industry pros, all the speakers on this tour were Adobe employees. Many carried titles like Product Manager, Technical Marketing VP, Product Specialist, Team Leader and Evangelist. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it certainly skews both the viewpoint and level of production experience the attendees got exposed to. In fairness to Adobe, they were wholly forthcoming about who would be speaking. But I still think everyone would have benefited by including some dedicated pros the way Epson Academy does every year.

All speakers were nice and personable. All had at least a smattering knowledge of what they were there to speak about. Beyond that things diverged. One speaker had obviously enjoyed a bit too much of our fair city’s nightlife the evening before and had a hard time remembering how some applications worked. For better or worse, the audience was knowledgeable and willing to help with catcalls like “try creating a comp first” and “if you UNLOCK that layer you can then paste to it”.

Other presenters were stumbling through having to work with the beta software versions that still had some bugs and perhaps some features that were still very new. They would often excused themselves and remind us this was still beta, but in truth they were doing very well and the glitches were at a minimum.

One thing I noticed was a high level of topic crossover, especially when it came to Flash. As might have been expected Flash snuck its way into almost every seminar because it is either the primary development application for those doing web, multimedia and even video, or it is used as an alternative destination for those involved in print.

The bottom line is that although this was a thinly veiled marketing tour (at $199 for both days and $79 for one), it was still all about the tools we use every day for our work and our art. The seminar gave attendees a big leap ahead on the cool features to come. And while there are many new features, Adobe is correct in saying that their best new feature is the further unification of the entire line into a more cohesive family. Across the CS3 line the applications are significantly more inter-operable than in previous version.

Adobe offers individual CS3 applications for sale, but your best bet is to buy into a suite of tools in a bundle that cost much less than in previous years. Bundles are available for Web, Design and Video that range from $1599-1799. Or get it all in the Master Collection for just $2499. Upgrades and educational versions are available at significant discounts. Read more at Adobe.com

Look for our exclusive hands-on review of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium coming soon to GFXreview.