The Consumer Electronics Show is organized by the Consumer Electronics Association of USA. Where we exhibit is called the High Performance Audio (HPA) Showcase. It is not, and has never been (as far as I know) organized by Stereophile or any of the magazines. T.H.E. Show is a "leech" that piggy-backs off CES by selling rooms at less than half the price of CES, and non-union drayage. When the HPA was in the Alexis Park and THE Show was in the St. Tropez, it was a 5-minute walk and it made sense.
Now, with the HPA up on the 29th floor of The Venetian, and it can take sometimes half an hour to get an elevator to the ground floor, THE Show being at the Flamingo Hotel doesn't make a huge amount of sense. International distributors who may spend 2 to 3 days in the US won't want to take the hour to walk across. When I make an appointment with an International Distributor, we generally will spend up to 40 minutes together (then they take 20 minutes to walk to the next appointment). Hence, the chances of a random guy walking into your room and be impressed enough to want to take on a new product is extremely low.
The problem with CES is that you have to be a long-time member of CEA and have participated continuously in CES to maintain priority in choosing rooms. I can't take a break for a year or try out THE Show, and then come back the next year. You get pushed to the bottom of the ladder and then are left with the dredges of the rooms. However, given the falling exhibitor rates, that might not be too bad.
It would be interesting to see the attendee audit numbers for this year. Last year (CES2013), there were 51,000 exhibitors and 90,000 attendees. Remember - this is a professional show, and all attendees and exhibitors are supposed to represent companies in the CE space. There were 13,000 registered attendees in the High Performance Audio space.
This is slightly down from CES2012 - 51k exhibitors, 93k attendees, 13k HPA.
If the numbers go down even more for CES2014, it might not make sense to exhibit with our own room in CES2015. We might have to figure on sharing a room with another one/two manufacturers at half or 1/3 the cost. Planning for CES needs to start in March with the booking of the rooms (and placing the deposit)..... and it isn't until Oct/Nov when I know whether I will be able to complete a new product to launch, and start inviting international distributors to come and listen. Tough business.
