The first Macworld Conference & Expo was held in Boston in 1985, the brainchild of Peggy Kilburn, who helped to grow the event in size and profitability during her tenure (1985-1999). The event in San Francisco has always been held at the Moscone Center. The Expo was also held in Brooks Hall near the San Francisco Civic Center from 1985 until 1993, when the expansion of Moscone Center allowed the show to be consolidated in one location. Today there's only one annual Macworld, but in years past, there have been two. The Eastern U.S. event was held initially at the Bayside Expo & Executive Conference Center, later expanding with a dual presence at the Boston World Trade Center in Boston, but was moved to New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in 1998.

In 2003, IDG World Expo renamed the New York trade show the Macworld CreativePro Conference & Expo in an attempt to reach the creative market in the New York area. The 2004 and 2005 summer shows, retitled Macworld Conference & Expo were moved to Boston, However, Apple wanted the summer event to stay in the Big Apple and refused to exhibit. Many other companies followed their example, which resulted in reduced attendance when compared to previous Macworld conferences. On 16 September 2005, IDG announced that no further summertime shows would be held in NYC or in Boston.

The show has taken place in other cities, historically. A Tokyo show, produced by IDG World Expo Japan, was held at Makuhari Messe and moved to Tokyo Big Sight in 2002. Macworld Expo Summit, a version of the show targeted at U.S. government customers, was held at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. as late as 1994. In 2004 Macworld UK, part of the IDG UK division of IDG, created two Macworld Conference events on its own: one standalone conference, and one conference adjoining the Mac Expo trade show in London.
In January 2005, IDG World Expos announced Macworld On Tour, a series of small conferences in various North American cities. An initial conference, in Kissimmee, Florida, was later canceled. No future announcements for Macworld On Tour have been made.

This year’s San Francisco event promises to be the largest in years with a 28 percent increase in pre-show registrations over MWSF 2006, according to the show organizers at IDG World Expo. In 2006, the number of overall visitors increased 6.8 percent from the 2005 event. There were 38,441 overall visitors in 2006, compared to 35,989 in 2005. This year, the new “Digital Lifestyle Experience” highlights expansion into North Hall at Moscone. Hundreds of new products are expected to debut, and the exhibit hall will feature almost 400 companies.

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