CES Tradeshow Booms In Attendance as AV Industry Suffers

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CES Tradeshow Booms In Attendance as AV Industry Suffers

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is out today with audited information on the attendance of CES 2008. The total number of attendees was 141,000 – higher than the projected 130,000 number alluded to earlier by the CEA.

The show is officially the largest tradeshow of any kind and in any business and uses more than 1.85 million square feet of space to highlight the best in consumer electronics. And if you believe the press release everything in the AV business is booming like it’s a dotcom stock in 1999 but the truth is things are very ugly in the audio-video business and CES has lost its focus for specialty AV.

CES merged with COMDEX after the dotcom bust in an effort to boost show attendance and foster the “next thing” of AV-PC convergence. Most in the press and nearly all consumers are waiting for PCs and home electronics to meaningfully converge yet the CES tradeshow is basically dominated by computer companies with the major victim being specialty audio video. Big box retailers like Best Buy and warehouse players like Costco and Wal-Mart now dominate in a world where CES was much more diverse in terms of its players. It wasn’t that long ago that purchase orders were actually written at CES from everyone from the likes of regional chains to Mom and Pop dealers in meaningful volumes. Now that CES is as big and unwieldy with hotel rooms that easily cost $400 a night and transportation issues resulting in taxi cues of two plus hours – smaller dealers either go to the competing CEDIA trade show or don’t go to any show at all. At least at CEDIA the dealers and installers can learn how to better their staff and or business chops. At CES, they can fight with every blogger or Chinese OEM on the planet to get near a 190-inch plasma and then wait another 90 minutes to go to an off-site location for their next meeting.

Its time the CEA does something about home theater and specialty audio video. Sticking the audiophile companies in the Venetian was fine other than the 30-minute wait to get into a stuffed elevator. As for home theater, the South Hall of the convention center was supposed to be a mini-CEDIA but it is overridden with computer companies and OEMs. There is basically nothing to see there anymore. The CEA needs to look at taking care of the business that got them to the size and power they have today and secure a location like Mandalay Bay for a true audio and video display. Mandalay has their own smaller convention center and two hotels to host audio demos as well as larger AV displays. There is a lot of room for displays outside, tents and more while keeping the focus on selling home theater, specialty audio video and audiophile equipment. It wouldn’t even be a bad idea to stagger the time for this element of CES with the mainstream show so that the costs are lower and the logistics are easier.

Source: AVRev News