Michael Hart

A Different Measure of Success

Intl. CES opened today. Even in good years, the giant consumer products show is invested with great significance. It’s both the first major show of the year and typically the largest. (For many years now, it’s been No. 1 on the Tradeshow Week 200 whenever CONEXPO-CON/AGG doesn’t bump it down to No. 2.)

Whether they should or not, many in the tradeshow world figure the story on Intl. CES will tell them something about how their shows might do later in the year. Last year’s Intl. CES showfloor amounted to just more than 1.7 million square feet, about 150,000 sq. ft. smaller than the 2008 show. Overall attendance – both attendees and exhibit staffers – was in the neighborhood of 110,000, down from somewhere around 135,000 in 2007 and a big step down from 150,000 in 2006.

Consumer Electronics Assn. officials have been telling the media they expect 110,000 again this year, but, according to today’s Wall Street Journal, CEO Gary Shapiro is optimistic the number ultimately will be higher than that.

Last year, CEA officials told Tradeshow Week during the event their best attendance estimate was 130,000 – and weeks later that number was reduced to 110,000. Hard to believe a sophisticated organization like CEA could have been off by 20,000 on the day of the show but … there you go.

It begs the question of whether this year’s estimate of 110,000 is also a bit optimistic, and whether the real figure will be even lower.

In the end, it probably doesn’t matter. Those who were in Las Vegas in 2006 when there were 150,000 there know the city was one big traffic jam, and the idea of making good use of your time or getting the most out of the show was just a dream.

Plus, CEA has worked hard this year to lower expectations, pointing out it is qualifying potential attendees in a way it never has before in order to deliver those quality attendees everybody is talking about these days.

The chances are good, I think, we will never see 150,000 at Intl. CES again (if for no other reason than exhibiting companies won’t bring 50,000 themselves, as they have in the past) – and so what if we don’t?

As everybody keeps saying when they talk about today’s quality attendees, as long as the right buyers meet the right sellers, who cares how many people were there?

As the tradeshow industry returns to health over this year and next, there are a lot of shows that won’t see the kinds of record crowds they did in 2006 and 2007. The same could be true with those record-sized showfloors. It may not matter though, as we all begin to measure success differently than in the past.

Posted by Michael Hart on January 7, 2010 | Comments (1)