Richard Alley, a geoscience professor at Penn State, drilled into the Antarctic a few years ago removing a half-mile ice core documenting the last Ice Age, which Alley determined had lasted 10,000 years then came to an abrupt end in only three years. That may seem an odd analogy for this week’s Consumer Electronics Show but it’s what came to mind when I saw story after story suggesting CES, too, might be winding down. I think it is. And I further think that maybe the only thing that might yet save CES in some form is Willie Nelson, or maybe Taylor Swift.
Huh?
CES never used to matter much in my world. The show to attend was Comdex (and before that NCC). CES meant TVs and stereos, but Comdex, well Comdex was about computers. Up to 250,000 people in one place just because of computers.
What killed Comdex, I think, was a combination of 9/11, the Internet, and the end of the dot-com bubble. But then 9/11 came close to taking out a lot of institutions, even me.
It was the simultaneous loss of dot-com largess and the abrupt, but temporary, end to business travel after 9/11 that almost killed my career. Pre-9/11 I was being paid to speak somewhere twice a month. Post-9/11 I was speaking twice a year. Comdex was hurt even more than I was, though, because it was built on voodoo economics. Comdex owner Softbank retrenched, facing reality, the show closed, and suddenly it made perfect sense to display computers alongside the big screen TVs at CES in January, calling that change progress.
But now CES appears to be succumbing, too, to another era of reduced aspirations. Microsoft is pulling out. Half of the PC people who matter at CES live or work within 50 miles of each other anyway in the Bay Area, so why meet in Vegas? Why indeed?
It’s hard to see, in fact, almost any big venue trade show that is growing and not in trouble. The only such business I can see that defies this trend is big name music touring, which brings us back to Taylor Swift and to Willie. With so much that’s synthetic and artificial in our world, somehow the idea of seeing and hearing a real person onstage has gained new allure, a business model just waiting to be exploited through co-marketing.
Having once paid for my kids to see the Moscow Circus sponsored by Huggies, I can imagine a logical music/technology hybrid replacing the traditional techie trade show, a little like Burning Man and a lot like Steve Wozniak’s old US Festivals where computers and music were displayed side-by-side.
Apple presents U2! (iPads around back).
Why not?
With 10 million IT professionals of one sort or another in America you could tie a tech seminar and a sales pitch to anything from Usher to cricket to Scottish Games, but with no more going to Vegas (and no Justin Bieber — too young). The trade show (and t-shirt sellers) would come to us, just like Willie Nelson does.
Just like Fish.
Write that weekend off your taxes.
Somebody call Live Nation.
This 2012 thing is really happening. First you now CES what’s next?
Second!
But…don’t those big trade shows have entertainment already? (I’ve never been, obviously).
You mean like South by Southwest? SxSW is already most of what you describe. It needs just a slightly harder edged focus on technology in addition to what already happens there before it becomes exactly what you describe.
Also – Phish, not Fish, unless there’s some cultural reference going on that I’m just utterly oblivious to.
Exactly! — SXSW was a music show that morphed into a trend-tech-futurist-incubator convention simply because the music was already gathering the exact kind of young, progressive, ambitious, and occasionally techie people that COMDEX used to get. Plus Austin represents the new tech culture a hell of a lot more than Vegas, a city built on exploiting human urges that predate the printing press.
Give it two years and SXSW will be the Sundance of tech startups.
Cringely probably meant Phish but at his age he might meant Fish, the original singer for the band Marillion.
Or Abe Vigoda.
He’s still alive!
Or Country Joe and the Fish…
Or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUusX1Js6R0
(see the 1:05 mark)
AbeVigoda.com
Well, come to New Orleans, we’d love to have ya….
Hasn’t one of the major goals of technology over the last thirty years been to make conventions obsolete? Maybe CES killing itself could be its greatest achievement.
I agree with idea sculptor and WLH: SxSW is where’s it’s at. It’s huge, growing, thriving, and pretty cool to boot. And that’s just the Interactive (technology) part. Music and Film have even more cache. Taken together, the three sub-shows make for a ridiculously popular event. And yes, it’s all in Austin.
Cheers,
Charlie
I think that you mean cachet.
I believe that Bob is spot on. Not only are tech shows dying but just about all trade shows are either dead, dying or taking their last gasps. The oxygen is all gone. And I say this from experience. People get enough of what they need online at first, and later seeing the item at a retailer or at their mate’s place.
I’ve exhibited at many dozens of trade shows in my country (New Zealand) over the last two decades. Between 2003 and 2007 I leveraged a wide range of trade shows – from general interest to technology to industry specific – to launch and promote the hi-tech aspirational product that my business sells. I had the formula down to a fine art and these shows were a very successful (ie: cost-effective) vehicle for my business.
The utility of trade shows began to fade quickly from mid 2007 and by the time the Global Economic Crisis occurred the writing had been on the wall for a while. In my country there were few shows even running for the next 3 years following 2008. Come 2011, a number of shows relaunched, and I exhibited at several that year….and from a business perspective they were….useless. A big hole to pour good money into. This is also the consensus of other exhibitors that I have talked to.
Its over. The Day of the Trade Show has passed. Sure, there will be some special sector shows that will remain strong – particularly those that need to demonstrate complex-to-use/understand equipment, such as farm equipment and engineering tools/processes. In the consumer space possibly “Home Shows” might continue to stand on their own feet – but the day of consumer shows for electronics, computers, and aspirational goods in general are over. They’re too expensive to put on to deliver a useful return to exhibitors, and the punters are bored because they’ve seen it all online months ago. You can see it on their faces as they walk the corridors asking “Where is all the cool stuff?” Yet as little as 5 years ago their eyes were wide with excitement at every turn.
Bob’s suggestion of adding tech exhibitors to music festivals is on the money. Under current ‘360’ contracts, the artists, record companies and promotors are all highly motivated to create and be part of supermassive events.
The one example that I have seen to date was about 5 years ago, where Apple NZ had a massive ‘lounge’ with their gear set up at the Auckland leg of the Big Day Out international indie rock festival (similar to Lollapalooza in the US). While Apple were clearly still finding their feet as to how to create and lay out such a space, the idea was a bit ahead of its time. More recently the mobile phone operators (e.g.: Vodafone) have had massive brand presence at such shows here. As a potential future exhibitor at such events, I think perhaps the formula will work best at day-long or even multi-day festivals, rather than at single-artist shows, and as such this will be one of the limiting factors. But still, I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing at music festivals of every genre in years to come.
Philip
Not a fan (phan?) of them, but I believe you mean “Phish”.
Frankly, I’ve never assigned any significance to Microsoft’s, or any of the other big keynote speakers’ presences at CES.
As Bob already pointed out, CES is about CE, not computers, or that realm of technology. The real happenings are about what’s on the show floor and in the suites. The stuff that the buyers from Best Buy, etc., are looking at, and what will appear later in the year on the store shelves.
It’s not about what Gates, Ballmer, or whatever guest CEO from another industry (like the auto industry) have to say in their speeches.
Take this test–can you recall anything of impact that has been the subject of a MS, or other CES keynote speech in the time they’ve been there? Something that changed the game or wasn’t already expected?
The PC people have tried to usurp the CES spotlight, and I’m sure Shapiro and the LV Convention Center folks are happy to have them. But they were never the guest of honor that started the party. The party may be dying down, but it’s not because they’re leaving, but more of a nature consequence of trade show decay.
And yet, the Detroit Auto Show is growing. So not all trade shows are dying.
I think another reason for the decline of CES is that its just too big. For exhibitors, I have to believe there is just too much competing noise of products. For attendees, too many people, too many long lines. The logistics of getting around are a nightmare. The ration of “learning” to “waiting to learn” is too small.
PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) is a growing trade show but it’s for fans, not press. It started as the E3 for fans and is now probably more relevant than E3. The PAX guys have started doing two shows a year, one on each coast six months (or so) apart.
Yes! PAX is the new Comdex.
I, Cringely. And CES going in 2012? This is too much to take…
Interesting that Audi are showing off the new interior of the A3 at CES (It’s on autocar.co.uk).
In Scotland / UK we first noticed that car shows were in decline. We lost the dedicated Scottish one about a decade ago but even the UK one has gone too now.
I look back at my dad taking me round the car shows, and I think to myself what about the next generation? What are their dads going to inspire them with?
Bob, I think you’re on to something, but following the model of concerts and auto shows as @Dave pointed out, instead of having one gigantic show at one place which everyone travels to, having a traveling trade show.
Taylor Swift doesn’t have one concert and 15 million people come, she has 100 concerts which 15,000 people come to each. So the consumer electronic folks need to pack up their gear like traveling salesmen of old and rove the country pitching their wares.
Future model?
I would agree the big trade shows are dying, but I think smaller ones will remain robust. I did the Comdex, Networld, Interop, Networld/Interop shows and they just had too high of a noise to signal ratio to stay relevant. It kept getting harder for attendees to justify those expense accounts.
The trend is “mini trade shows” or “expos” that are associated with a conference devoted to a very specific topic or company (SFDC or Oracle come to mind). These tend to be much shorter in duration, require fewer people to staff booths and have a pre-qualified audience for the vendors who participate.
Vegas is going to have a tough time filling all that convention space, same goes for other cities and their dreams of being a convention destination.
This. Particularly the “pre-qualified audience” part. The biggest problem with a lot of trade shows is an excessive number of “tourists”, typically either there for the free stuff, an excuse to head to Vegas on their employer’s dime, or quite often both.
I last went to Interop three years ago (and even that was due to a partner event for one of our vendors). I didn’t see anything that couldn’t have been shown off over the Web faster, easier and for far less money.
screw Willie, the original Beach Boys are touring this year as a unit. Brian Wilson and Mike Love on the same stage.
that’s a one-shot tour that will fill all those empty auditoriums.
Except they’d need to have Geritol dispensers in the back.
Agree with Stephen Johnson. The big motorcycle show (sponsored by an insurance company with a reputation for being good for motorcycles) is a traveling show. I’m guessing that the home shows and boat shows we get here in the Pacific NorthWet are also circuit-riders…
The motorcycle show is interesting… there are *some* folks that travel with the show, but much of it is the local sales reps setting up mini-showroom floors in the convention space… one of each bike kind of thing… and at least one of the local gear stores moves a lot of their inventory into the show, too… they stay busy….
I remember as a kid being wowed by Tomorrowland at Disneyland and the various World Fairs that I attended. Typing away at a teletype connected to a computer somewhere at IBM’s exhibit was truly a wonder.
I saw the Sony Wonder Technology Lab when my kid visited me at my office in New York about a decade ago. We were shocked at how out of date everything was. They actually had an exhibit on how a phone modem worked. You could even print out your own name tag! Or, play a computer game!
We went to Epcot Center in Disney and found it funny that they had a whole exhibit on the GM EV1 (a year after they canceled the program) and the Sega Dreamcast console after Sege decided to leave the hardware market. My kids were not impressed.
Maybe we’re more hard edge and cynical now. Maybe it’s just hard to keep up with change. You sit there and plan an exhibit at CES or a World’s Fair exhibit and hope and pray that by the time you unpack your crates, your stuff isn’t out of date. It didn’t help Microsoft by displaying the Windows 7 HP Slate at CES. And, the Heleos Ocean 2 was displayed quite prominently at CES in 2007 just as Apple is announcing the iPhone: http://db.tt/R2qkI4Tk.
We now have blogs, and technology websites. Companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft can announce their technology when it is fresh and expect just as big an audience as if they announced it as MacWorld or CES. Apple has their stores, Microsoft is getting them up and running.
Trade fairs are no longer all that important for companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Google. They announce an event, and hundreds of reporters run to it and report on it. The problem is that these fairs were the life blood of smaller tech companies who if they announced a tech event, no one would bother coming. Shows like CES were their one chance to talk to a David Pogue who might be so impressed by their technology, they’d dedicate a whole column to it.
Just went to the Auto Show in San Jose, CA last weekend. Only spent an hour and a half there but it was well worth while. Wife and I narrowed down our next purchase from 6 cars down to 3 (2 really I don’t have a big budget)
Hi-Tech-wise Trade shows are evolving like the industry. Some are bigger (e.g. Oracle Open World thanks to acquisitions; VMworld) while others are shrinking (e.g. Interop). In some industries they are static (e.g. Healthcare – HIMSS and RSNA).
They will always serve a purpose but as time goes on people’s focus will change and so will the trade show line-up…
Showing my age a bit – but I still remember the 1981 West Coast Computer Faire – (Jim Warren on rollerskates) and Bob’s InfoWorld threw a gigantic party/concert for exhibitors (potential advertisers).
Pity it was about 5 years before Bob started writing his column …
Smaller specialised events are allways more useful.
I would expect two sorts of trade shows to survive:
• those that display products not available, like concept cars, to fans of the genre
• those that include instruction, such as fishing shows, woodworking shows and home repair shows.
Just showing what can be found online is just not going to sell tickets.
There is a lot of interesting high-tech things that happen at Burning Man. It’s full of techies and more than a few CEOs that might be seen at CES do show up at Burning Man. The problem is that the environment is not optimal for a combination trade show fantasy show. It’s not just the mud. It’s the lack of infrastructure to handle much more than 70,000 people.
I was thinking something between a CES, Burning Man and Maker Faire would be a wonderful experience and why not stage it in Las Vegas? Someplace where you can get out of the office and away from your usual life, but be accessible not only to press, to techies, but to the general public. A place where you could walk through a house using nothing but Microsoft technology. Walk down the street and see a qudracopter drones being used to play a 50′ tall strategy flying game. Imagine an ice cream bar where you can get any flavor combination imaginable from a select few ingredients. I once ran across a guy at Burning Man who could put any flavor on a toothpick. Now imagine if Microsoft had the tools to clearly show how you could set up the ability to monitor your homes power usage, adjust the lighting while at home or away, how you could easily program Christmas lights. I am using Microsoft as an example, but I am not pushing Microsoft.
As others have pointed out, some shows are doing OK. Our Comic Con in San Diego has been growing each year and it’s now quite difficult to get tickets. They’ve had the city double our main convention center once and they’re about to expand it again!
I keep wondering when is it going to peak.
I think that conventions based on 1) collecting rare items, 2) meeting niche celebrities, 3) celebrating a lifestyle, or 4) buying/selling things that need live demo will always do well.
Comicon, gun shows, the porn section of CES, and CON-AGRA have nothing to fear.
shshshshshsh….!
COMDEX and NCC was all about leaving the wives and girlfriends (or significant others for the old Apple crowd…) to party hard on the Vegas strip with the ladies of the entertainment industry. for some of the real young engineer crowd, it was better than a stock bonus to be given a party room with a Jacuzzi and mirrors on the ceiling at Caesar’s Palace and an open expense account!
I used to love seeing staunch, upright Beemers become idiots on the strip. Made for great pictures and enhanced my career. It was fabulous for my career to take a picture of an IBM and an Apple exec making out in the parking lot….
The best job (if properly done) for a rising young IBM executive was to be the leader of the “Drunk and Ho Patrol” prying IBM executives like the famous brothers from the writhing bodies of female clients and vendors and giving them their clothes back at SHARE, COMMON and GUIDE.
I guess the girls in Vegas and the bars must be missing those fabulous shows and conventions. Sigh…….
Sounds like a background story on “Vegas”. Ever thought of writing TV scripts?
The boomer gen is aging rapidly, so . . .
The adult diapers tour with the Rolling Stones. Try your hand at filling one, gratis, by Depends.
The hearing aid tour with Tony Bennett. Plus, klaxon-loud smart phones in all colors.
The thick glasses tour with the revivified remains of Roy Orbison, sponsored by Bausch and Lomb.
The Alzheimers tour with Brian Wilson, sponsored by Genentech. Free samples.
The transfusion tour with Edgar Winter. 83andMe.
Bob,
I, too, travelled to many trade shows in the 80s and 90s. NCC, COMDEX, MacWorld.
Like video killing the radio star, I think the Internet has killed off the trade show. It used to be, when trade shows were popular, that it was the only way to communicate what was going on in the industry. COMDEX was popular enough that it was held twice a year: once in Vegas and one in Atlanta (later Chicago).
But the availability of the internet and more rapid information transfer stole most of the trade show thunder. Apple was amoung the first companies to figure this out.
CES meets SXSW?
I will miss going to trade shows. They gave me a great excuse turn the monitors off and meet lots real people. Its also another indication of the slow winding-down of the western industrial world 🙁
My 2 cents (same as others have mentioned).
Back in the days I was a regular visitor at CeBIT in Hannover (GER), and although I have never visited CES, Comdex or the mega-shows in the US, I want to make a few points.
One: Bloat. These Big Fairs are too big for their good. Browsing CeBIT usually too me a few days, even then I was walking selectively (skipping those halls which were too far of (my)base). Last time I had a pedometer with me, averaging 27000 steps per day. Even then, there was seldom a way to get into contact with presenters (even though my card should had carried some oomph).
Two: S/N. My god, the amount of people who had no real business there. Just hanging around, billing the employer for time and expenses.
During my later years I have had more experience with smaller trade shows/fairs and have usually considered them far more useful.
It happened that this past year I attended Interop NYC. Interop is of moderate size, but the key factor is Interoperability — How can you get all of these diverse products from many providers working together in an almost cohesive way? The do it each year, then take it on the road to a few different locations. Could that be (part of) the future?
No one wants to admit CES is fading, but it grew too large many years back. I attended for almost a decade.
I recall a tightening of credentials for 2008 after 2007 was so filled with fans and enthusiasts that those of us with some degree of business to do couldn’t make it across the floor. The economic downturn did the deed more effectively for the 2009 show, and the LVCC was nowhere near as busy.
http://sehanley.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/ceswalkaycentraltosouthhall.jpg
I saw 3 D on flat panels years before civilians did, met with innovators who missed the cycle and never got off the ground. The reduction of this show is especially hard on Las Vegas, but the rest of the world will move on.
Oh – and, sad to note, but live music isn’t doing that well, either. Unless we find better economic models, or re-set our expectations, there’s a lot more that we won’t see.
Finally saw the movie “Fierce Creatures” last night. To try to get to 20% net revenue, aggressive sponsorships at zoos.. A tiger has a vest over it that reads, “Absolut Fierce.” They try to get Bruce Springsteen to sponsor a turtle…
Wonder where this all ends up?
I find the idea the CES is dying pretty laughable.
Attendance is up, along with total exhibit space and total number of exhibitors.
https://www.engadget.com/2012/01/13/ces-2012-sets-all-time-records-for-attendance-exhibitors/
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