Jesse Tron, an ICSC spokesman, says quantity at the convention is being sacrificed for quality.

"The key decision makers are the ones who are coming," he says. "They're not bringing their entire staff."

Attendance isn't the only thing that will be new this year. ICSC also switched up the program a bit based on feedback from its members. The conference trade show, which opened on Sunday last year and closed on Tuesday, is open from Monday through Wednesday.

And people who are too busy making deals at the trade show to attend educational sessions have other options. Throughout the convention halls there will be 20 meeting places where mini presentations with wi-fi access will take place.

Retailers should have more of a presence at the show as well. James McMasters, retail director at Collier's International, is moderating the convention's Global Retail Runway on Monday and says that retailers are getting more active in their dealings with landlords.

"They have become more proactive," he says. "We used to have to work so hard to get them to volunteer. It's going to be a different flavor as we go forward."

That's because of so little new development in retail. Now a chain that wants to expand has to consider older sites that need rebuilding, meaning that the retailers need to work more closely with landlords.

The hope is that this kind of close collaboration will help to prevent the same downturn that caused the convention to more than a third of its one-time number of attendees in the first place.

"The industry needed to change," explains McMasters. "We overbuilt. Retailers expanded too fast. It needed to be fixed, and it's being fixed very painfully."