Making Room for a Giant

Las Vegas—Intl. CES, the country's biggest annual trade-show, continues to dazzle participants and onlookers alike with top-tier celebrities touting futuristic gizmos. But behind all the excitement is show management's daunting task of taming a growing giant.

With the demise of former top dog and fellow Vegas extravaganza COMDEX never too far from anyone's mind, Intl. CES organizers from the Consumer Electronics Assn. fight a constant battle to balance market demand with customer service.

This year's Intl. CES drew more than 150,000 attendees and more than 2,500 exhibitors. Although a boon for organizers, such huge crowds can make it a hassle to get around. Attendees reported waiting as much as an hour to get a cab and a half-hour to get a shuttle. Parking for the show was $20 and single-ride tickets for the Las Vegas Monorail went up to $5 apiece for out-of-town visitors.

The congestion was cause for consternation for some attendees. "I hate coming to Las Vegas," said Paul Gallagher, technical marketing director of the imaging group at Micron Technology. "I got off the plane at 10:30 p.m. and wasn't in my hotel room until 1:30 a.m."

And the show keeps getting bigger and bigger. The 2004 event topped the Tradeshow Week 200 with 1.4 million net square feet of exhibits, 2,525 exhibiting firms and 95,172 professional attendees. Last year, it blew past those numbers, with 2,576 exhibitors and 102,710 attendees fanning out over 1.5 million net sq. ft. of exhibit space.

This year, it broke its own record again, spanning 1.7 million net sq. ft. and creeping up on the triennial CONEXPO-CON/AGG, which last year filled 1.9 million sq. ft. of the Las Vegas Convention Center with gigantic cranes, bulldozers and other construction equipment.

But unlike organizers of CONEXPO, and venue-bound LVCC events SEMA Show and NAB, CEA has taken the plunge into multi-venue expansion — complicating the task of managing sprawl.

This year, the show's core — featuring big brands like Sony and Microsoft — filled the LVCC. International companies were located at the Las Vegas Hilton next door. A couple miles away at Alexis Park were high-performance audio exhibits. And, for the first time this year, CEA contracted with Sands Expo & Convention Center to locate the show's emerging technologies in two large halls there.

CEA went to great lengths to make sure the transition to the Sands was as painless as possible for attendees. Organizers started last year by grouping types of exhibits into a large outdoor pavilion in the LVCC parking lot called Innovations Plus. Everywhere was encouragement to "See us next year at the Sands."

The strategy was to get people used to the idea of the latest-and-greatest gadgets and technology being somewhere outside the show's nucleus, said Karen Chupka, CEA's vice president of events and conferences.

The week leading up to this year's show, CEA sent out e-mails encouraging attendees to stop by Innovations Plus at the Sands before heading to the convention center, teasing them with the various attractions located there and giving detailed travel instructions. The Sands exhibits opened an hour earlier than those at the LVCC, and a constant stream of Greyhound-size buses shuttled people back and forth between the two venues throughout the day.

The plan worked. Exhibitors at the Sands reported heavy foot traffic through the hall during the first two days of the show, and even the Vegas-averse Gallagher had to admit it was pretty painless to get there from the LVCC, with minimal waits for a shuttle ride that took 10 to 15 minutes.

"It's a lot easier to move around here (at the Sands)," said Tony Detora, a buyer with Hello Direct. "I prefer this over the tents they had in the parking lot last year."

There were just a couple of problems. For one thing, attendees were surprised the monorail has no stop at the Sands. The nearest stop, at Harrah's, leads less savvy travelers through a confusing detour of two casinos.

CEA heavily promoted the monorail as an option for hotel travel, but emphasized the dedicated shuttle bus in promotions of the Sands exhibits. Chupka said refinements to the plan next year might include more stops at the LVCC to catch the Sands express.

Another problem, for some, was the company at the Sands: Home Entertainment Events' AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, Jan. 5–8 in an adjacent hall. The show had actors, producers and distributors of pornography commingling with Innovations Plus participants in the venue's common areas.

"I didn't like having the porn show so near," said CES buyer attendee Janet Peterson, of XCSPEC, who took show management's advice and hit the Sands first thing on opening day. "I hope it's not there again next year."

Chupka said she was unsure of the adult show's dates for next year, but thought it might again overlap with Innovations Plus for a couple days.

"For us, what's important is that we'd like to continue to grow, and right now there isn't space anywhere else to do that," she noted. "We need to make sure we have the space to service our members and make sure they have a good environment to see the latest developments in their field."

Crowding that has led to problems like traffic congestion necessitated the expansion, Chupka said. In fact, attendees noted that the main parking lot and entrance to the LVCC were easier to get around this year.

Chupka added that the show will likely be larger again next year. Her hope is to occupy more of the recently completed 300,000 sq. ft. addition to the existing 600,000 sq. ft. of meeting and exhibit space at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino adjoining the Sands.

She'll need it. The convergence of electronics and information technology, along with the disappearance of COMDEX, appear likely to keep feeding CES' growth for the foreseeable future. This year, Internet giants Yahoo! and Google exhibited for the first time. Nokia, Hitachi and Sony (with a 25,000 sq. ft. exhibit) were back on the showfloor after using only meeting rooms in recent years, and companies like Movielink and Vonage Holdings had major sponsorships.

"There are so many new types of companies that want to be in the show," Chupka said. Expanding to other venues allows CEA to accommodate them, while continuing to provide showfloor meeting rooms, concierge services, new product pavilions and the other amenities longtime customers have come to expect — in addition to their own huge booths.

Asked what she thought about Boyd Gaming's plan to include 1 million sq. ft. of convention space in Echelon Place, just a block from the LVCC, Chupka said, "We're always interested in new projects like that."

In addition to private development, the city continues to work on its infrastructure to make it more visitor-friendly. In November, Clark County gave the Las Vegas Monorail the go-ahead to investigate options for extending service to McCarran Intl. Airport. Construction could start by the end of this year.