CES Scales Up While Companies Push Back

The Consumer Electronics Show is being pushed in ever-more-glamorous directions as organizers attempt to top themselves every year. Much like the final years of the E3 event, this week's showcase will feature loud music and brightly-lit stages. At the same time, also mirroring E3, the big businesses that drive CES are starting to rethink the need for the event itself. The New York Times reports: "Technology companies now frequently introduce their products elsewhere, in an effort to reach consumers more directly. The Apple iPhone, the Nintendo Wii and other recent must-haves were not unveiled at C.E.S. One of the industry's biggest hits in 2007 was the Flip Video camcorder, an easy-to-use pocket-size device that sells for $120. Executives from Pure Digital Technologies, its maker, visited Las Vegas last year during the show but kept to their hotel suite at the Wynn."

It's only reasonable.

Why compete against other companies, while having to pay for floorspace? Why not start an ad campaign and send out more units to review to technology websites.

big-budget tradeshows a waste of money

In other news, sky found to be blue.

Suicidal

"the organisers attempt to top themselves every year" - in Blighty that means that they're annually attempting to commit suicide. So either they're very bad at it, or they keep getting distracted by the shiny things.

This broadcast brought to you by Pan Atlantic Linguists (FRIEND).

Excellent quote from TFA

"One of the reasons Apple stole C.E.S. last year was that its message was simple and succinct," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. "C.E.S. does not have a crystal-clear message. There's too much information, and it looks like you have to get a Ph.D. to get these things to work."

Plain and simple, it's hard to stand out in a crowd!

Public admission?

Isn't CES closed to the public? Doesn't it then seem to make more sense to communicate directly with the consumer than to waste time and energy on something that only bills itself with the word?

Disregard if that's not the case, of course, but I can see where they're coming from if they only allow journalists entry.

Re:Public admission?

CES is a 'trade-only' event. That doesn't mean that a huge number of (international big box) retailers, installers, and other industry people don't go; it's just not as big as COMDEX (which was trade-only wink wink) was. COMDEX wasn't prepared for 9/11 and was killed by the industry down-turn and a bad chairman (IMHO).

Every big trade show needs industry strength to survive. In Europe, CeBIT is down, and while IFA and MobleWorld/3GSM are up, CES (even though it's a trade association show) must constantly re-justify itself and re-invent its value, otherwise it's a pricy proposition in an ever-pricier locale.

Re:Public admission?

The CES show is technically only open to people in the trade and journalists. It's not hard to get in though and I'm sure anybody here could do it. I've been twice in my lifetime. Things I noticed about the show that were not expected... There were more exotic cars in the Car Audio hall then at the entire LA Auto show. There were also plenty of game booths setup to play Xbox or PC games. Overall, the show is interesting but if I was in the trade I wouldn't see it as NEEDED. Also as a side note, most people who "are going to the CES show" are really next door at the Adult Entertainment Expo.

It's worth it just for the Keynote speech alone

BIll Gates states in his keynote in regards to vista: "I think a lot of people would say it was the best new product of the year in terms of the neat, new things they're using in it."

If anyone can honestly say that with a strait face, it's well worth it.

At the Wynn, you say ?

Really ? Not at Ceasar's ? My, that's just fabulous !

Take a cue from the porn guys

Take this with a grain of salt; it's been years since I was in the porn industry and actually got paid to go to CES so my knowledge may be out of date. But the adult section of CES (that once was the main draw for lots of attendees and certainly was an entertaining break for 99% of them) got too big and flashy, questioned the need to be a part of CES, and broke away years ago. Their completely separate gathering has been quite a success, from what I hear.

I've never understood why CES was so unfocused. Back when I went every year, there was the car stuff section, the adult section, the high end audio section (usually at a completely different location), the crap audio section, the home theatre section, the incredibly weird and useless lo-buck gadget section, and on and on. Lots of those things had nothing in common with anyone else and could have existed as their own (often large) trade show. CES is just too big and unfocused. If anyone is a big enough retailer to carry all the stuff that shows at CES, then they're big enough that they don't need to go to CES; the vendors would gladly come to them. Better to break it up and have people going to smaller shows where the products they're actually interested in are shown in more depth.

Trade shows in general are in decline

I have seen overall trade show decline in the past four years from both a vendor and attendee perspective. Why? As a vendor, it wasn't a great use of our marketing dollars to drop anywhere from $90K to $150K for a large booth, sponsorship and otherwise, for a show that didn't deliver when it came to converted opportunities. In the late 90's, we'd drop nearly $250K for a show, but as things went on, we noticed that all vendors appeared to scale back...except for Novell...they make Linux World with all the floor space they take up and all the swag they give out.

What I did notice though, and this holds especially true for the Linux World Show in San Francisco (specifically) is an increase of C-level executives attending.

The Real Rating System

this week's showcase will feature loud music and brightly-lit stages.

That's all well and good, but tell us about the quality and quantity of Booth Babes this year.

Never heard of the Flip Video camcorder

Have you?

'nuff said.

From a CES 2007 attendee

I went to CES a year ago, but all my work for the show was done before it opened. I then had the full 4 days to roam the show and see what I liked. The biggest flashiest booths at the show were Microsoft and Intel, right across from each other. I once heard "Hey when you're done with those quad-cores check out Vista!" Needless to say alot of the booths were useless, I mean at least 20 thousand square feet was devoted to big tv's, and the car audio floor was just fancy cars. The small company booths were fantastic with tons of new and interesting ideas and gadgets. The most satisfying part of the show was when I visited the Microsoft booth and waited until the Vista attendants went to the bathroom, and I grabbed 5 minutes on Vista and somehow managed to crash the system.