Results tagged “Las Vegas” from Trying Technology

This started out as a short preface to DERN @ CES 2008 Report #4: (Some of) The Products I Saw At CES 2008, but got long enough that I decided it was best as an entry of its own. (I originally posted "Products I Saw" as Report #3, and this as Report #4, but since blog entries go most-recent-on-top, I decided to re-arrange them to give "Products I Saw" a little better visibility... at least until I post yet something else.)

For the 4,500+ press, analysts and other media who have multiple turfs, or are generalists, trying to see some of everything at the Los Vegas Convention Center and Sands/Venetian exhibition areas and other meeting areas, not to mention get to any of the press conferences, is exhausting, impossible, or both.

And since the primary purpose of the exhibits and booths is for sales prospecting, it's often hard to get the right people or information at the booth -- although there are a lot of scheduled and unscheduled press chats.

The afternoon/evening multi-vendor press/analyst-only events have evolved as an alternative solution -- bring press, vendors (and their PR folks) into one big room starting sometime between five and seven PM (when the show floor has closed, anyway), add food and drink, and let simmer.

The opportunity math is compelling in both directions.

Journalists have access to anywhere from 20 to 150+ vendors -- and (as I've proven), it's possible to touch base and chat briefly with nearly all these in an event's three to four hours, and still have time to eat, and schmooze with our fellow wizards. (And the odds are that at least a third will be way out of each person's turf... although if they've got an interesting tchotchke (giveaway), we often stop by those tables as well.)

At 20 to 30 vendors per hour, only a few of these conversations will be in depth... but a minute or so is enough for a quick "what is it, who's it for, what's new, how much, available when, let's follow up post-show." More to the point, the next table is only a few yards away.

Similarly, exhibitors get the chance to be seen by hundreds of press and analysts -- many of whom would never take -- or have -- the time to find the vendor's booth on the show floor. Many vendors, in fact, are at Lunch@Piero's, Pepcom or ShowStoppers without being exhibitors at the show itself -- leveraging the show's press attendance.

(I'll write up a longer, more general "do the math" discussion at a later date.)

Note, this "be near the show but not an exhibitor" approach isn't parasitic, in my and other peoples' opinion. Many press folks -- including myself -- wouldn't go to CES, or some other events if there weren't a Pepcom or ShowStoppers event, because without them, we can't count on seeing enough good stuff easily or at all. In fact, Pepcom does some "freestanding" events (ShowStoppers hasn't -- yet), when there wasn't a trade show to also go to... and I've sent myself to some of their New York City ones.

A Few Words About The Events Themselves

The multi-vendor press/analyst events for CES 2008 (that I was aware of, and attended), were, in chronological order:

• CES Unveiled", "The Official Press Event of the International CES," Saturday, January 5, 4PM-7PM. 70+ vendors, with an estimated ~1,000 attendees.

  "CES Unveiled" is CES's kick-off event for the press -- a large roomful of vendor tables plus a steady stream of food.

  When I went to CES last year, I didn't get into town in time to go to this event. Friends who did re-assured me that pretty much every all the vendors there were also at Pepcom, ShowStoppers, or both.

  This year, I scheduled my flight so I could hit Unveiled as well -- since CES is my main marketing & research trip for the year, I figured I should try to get to as many press events as possible. This year it was in the Sands Expo, down the hallway from the Sands press registration and press room -- easy enough to get to.

  Memo to self for next year: get in line earlier, like at least an hour earlier. "CES Unveiled," unlike Lunch@Piero's, Pepcom and ShowStoppers, is open to anybody with a CES Press or Bloggers badge. Even though it was Saturday, the room was packed. Not as tightly as a Tokyo subway car at rush hour (and I was in Tokyo, for the first time, this summer, so I know what I'm talking about :-).

• Marty Winston's Cherry PicksSunday, January 6, 9 AM to Noon. Maximum of 100 vendors. (See CES Report #2 for notes and coverage of this.)

• Pepcom "Digital Experience, Sunday, January 6, 7PM-10PM. ~160 vendors, and an estimated 1,500 attendees. (Pepcom reports 900 for their 2007 CES event.)

  Pepcom's events are usually scheduled for the night before the show floor opens, with ShowStoppers getting the subsequent night. (There used to be more such events, J.P. Davis, and somewhat further back in trade show history, Silicon Valley Northwest, if memory serves. This often meant two such events in one evening, tricky at best to get cross-town in a timely fashion. Fortunately for us press folks, J.P. Davis got bought up, leaving us with a manageable one event per night.)

  Pepcom typically seems to have slightly more exhibitors than ShowStoppers -- but, with only three hours instead of four -- that isn't necessarily a good thing, it means less time to make the rounds and chat briefly with as many as possible. They also had less open floor space, so things were more crowded.

• Lunch @ Piero's, Monday, January 7 and Tuesday, January 8, 11:30AM-1PM. Appx. 20-24 exhibitors, and probably 400-500 attendees.

  Journalists need to eat lunch, and while the CES press room has free lunch (along with breakfast and mid-day snacks), the food's not that great, the line can be long, and if you don't get there in time, it can be all gone.

  Many vendors schedule press conferences around noon and include lunch -- but unless it's an announcement you care about (or are assigned to cover), this can be a bad use of time (and no guarantee the food will be something you like).

  Piero's Restaurant is a short block and a half from the Las Vegas Convention Center. For 23 years, ace PR woman Pat Meier has been renting Piero's out for PR lunches during CES, Comdex (and possibly other Vegas events, for invited members of the press. In roughly one half of the restaurant, vendors stand by tables; in the other, there's good food, tables, and chairs.

  The chat space can be crowded, but Lunch@Piero's provides a good break from the show floor and a convenient way to see and talk with the exhibitors -- many of whom aren't at the rest of the show. (And it's a chance to sit down and talk with colleagues.)

• ShowStoppers@CES 2008, Monday, January 7, 6PM-10PM. Appx. 130 exhibitors, and an estimated 1,500+ attendees.

  ShowStoppers and Pepcom are the two big evening events, these days. I've been going to ShowStoppers events since they began 15 years ago -- back in the days of Comdex, PC Expo and other shows, and when Interop (a.k.a. N+I) was a big show, three or four ShowStoppers events a year. (They're currently doing at least seven ShowStoppers in 2008, but I only expect to get to one other besides the CES one, at most.)

  Slightly fewer vendors isn't necessarily a bad thing -- combined with four hours to Pepcom's three, this meant we had more time to chat meaningfully with more of the exhibitors. Plus, this year's ShowStoppers had more open space than Pepcom -- i.e., less crowding, easier mingling -- and they also had tables and chairs, in addition to the standing-height tables, so we could actually sit, rather than be on our feet all evening after being on our feet most of the day.

There's some exhibitor overlap among these events -- I'm guestimating about a quarter, possibly more, of the vendors were at more than one event. But schedule permitting, it still makes sense, IMHO, to hit Unveiled, if possible, in my opinion; it extends the see-and-schmooze opportunity, and will free up some time at Pepcom and ShowStoppers to see the vendors who are at those events only...or to go back to a vendor with follow-up questions.

Rough totals for these events: 400 exhibitor tables -- factoring in repeats, say, 300 unique exhibitors; 16 hours (staying there the whole time, and going to both days of Piero's, ignoring that some events ran up to half an hour beyond official closing).

The first of several posts of stuff as I see it. After the show's over, I'll sort out my notes, brood, and post together categorized summaries, e.g. storage, mobile, photo, power..., and also my "Dern Good Stuff 'Best of CES 2008'" picks. (Plus I'll go back and add in more URLs.)

Coffee & B-Roll -- It's CES and it's Vegas, Jack

CES, the Consumer Electronics Association's annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas, in early January, is, according to CEA, "the world's largest consumer technology trade show, and North America's largest annual trade show of any kind." CES isn't for consumers, any more than Comdex was for end users (although some show up); it's for the retailers, manufacturers, installers, engineers, corporate buyers -- plus media folks (that's me), industry analysts, and sundry others.

Over 140,000 attendees, from 140 countries, are expected this year, to see a subset of the 2,700+ exhibitors, and perhaps catch some of the keynote speeches (including Bill Gates) and other sessions. That's Comdex-class city congestion, especially since CES's exhibits are too much to fit in either of the Vegas' two convention centers. So CES (like some of the last Comdexes) is distributed between the Las Vegas Convention Center including the Las Vegas Hilton and the parking lot in front, and, a few miles away, the interconnected Sands Expo & Convention Center and the Venetian Hotel... plus sundry related meetings and events all over town.

That's still not as big as the annual CeBIT show in Germany (I went to CeBIT in 2005, once was enough, thank you), where people often commute/travel in daily from one or two countries away. But it's plenty big. Big enough -- plus, given Vegas's sprawling, make-you-walk-past-as-many-shops-and-other-spending-things-as-possible architecture -- that we spend a lot of time walking, waiting in lines, taking taxis, shuttles and busses (the monorail here is five bucks a ride, doesn't go to or stop near a lot of places, and may be public transit but isn't "mass" transit by any stretch of the imagination). And although the city overall has, over the past five or ten years, gone non-smoking in restaurants, lobbies and many other places, the casino/gaming areas are still smokey, and it spills over.

I.e., if you think I or others are here having fun, think twice. Yeah, we're having some fun, and seeing colleagues who we're friends with. But attending this show is tiring, grueling work. And so far, it's grey and chilly here. We'd all rather be home or at the office.

Like the name suggests, CES is primarily about consumer electronics, including entertainment and other widgits for your house, car, and boat, as well as for mobile (walk, bicycle, travel) consumers, wireless, video (lots of HDTV!), gaming, content, high-end audio and some professional/business stuff. Plus odd-lot stuff like home security, electric toothbrushes, and -- well, we'll see. (For what it's worth, according to one person I chatted with at Logan Airport while waiting for our flight, CES is no longer the premier show for home audio/theater, CEDIA is.) Products that have debuted at past CES shows include the VCR (1970), the laserdisk player (1974) (I still own one :-), CD player (1981), DVD (1996), HDTV (1998), Xbox (2001), and plasma TV (2001).

There is, however, a lot of "prosumer" (professional consumer), business and office technology on display -- not surprising, given that a lot of today's tech can serve both groups. What there isn't much of (so far) is IT in the classic sense -- technology for companies also concerned with managing things and integrating them into their computing and network environments. I saw some IT-oriented exhibitors so far, at the Storage Visions Expo, like the Trusted Computing Group, and backup arrays and services, but I expect these will be in the minority.

Sensibly and fortunately, exhibitors are grouped by type into halls, as much as possible, e.g. automotive in one, home stuff in another. Some people might never leave a given hall; I could easily not go to half the halls, and not miss too much (although there's always something quirky or otherwise interesting there).

Once again, I'm sending myself, on my own kilo-dollar. With the Comdex and PC Expo shows no longer around, CES, including the associated press events, is the closest thing there is to a general computer show with professional/business and borderline-IT stuff. My main goals -- although, of course I'd be happy to sell some soon-after coverage -- are research and networking -- to see interesting stuff to write about, and schmooze with editors and reporters and PR folks to write for over the ear to come.

The CES show floor doesn't open until Monday morning, January 7. But things started early Saturday morning, with, among other things, Storage Visions 2008. And although Sunday is "Press Day," at least one CES partner event, Storage Visions, runs all day Saturday and Sunday with sessions and a few dozen exhibitor tables, and 4PM Saturday is "CES Unveiled," CES's press kick-off event with several dozen exhibitors.

Sunday morning is PRmeister Marty Winston's Cherry Picks event for the press, where press sits in chairs while vendors come up on stage one by one and do a one-minute overview spiel about their product (which has to be new since July 1). Sunday evening is Pepcom's Digital Experience, the first big press-and-analyst-place-to-be multi-vendor event -- scores of vendor tables, plus food and schmoozing.

Monday and Tuesday there's Pat Meier-Johnson's Lunch@Pieros, where invited journalists can get a decent lunch and chat with a dozen or two vendors inside Piero's Restaurant, an easy one-block walk from the Las Vegas Convention Center... and Monday night, ShowStoppers, the other big evening multi-vendor press see-schmooze-and-eat event.

Plus daytime strolling the exhibits at the show floors, of course, traffic and crowds permitting.