Can’t stand it when these darn trade shows think anyone anywhere is going to benefit by having them take place on the exact same dates in different States. By forcing exhibitors, attendees, and media to choose one or the other (or to try to split themselves in two for the week), they only end up causing both shows to suffer financially and reputationally. Last week Macworld Expo and CES decided to go head to head for what seems like the far too many-eth time, and as could easily have been predicted, both shows lost potential exhibitors. I know of several iPod-centric companies who would have exhibited at both shows this year if they’d been a week apart (and did just that last year), but this year had to choose to put their funds in only one show’s coffer. Of course, some companies split their staff (with some staff red-eyeing it all week) and managed to exhibit at both. And some publications try to do the same when it comes to their coverage.
Which is what we at iProng almost did. We looked at scenarios including spending Monday in Vegas at CES and then flying over to San Francisco late Monday night, just in time for Macworld — but that would only have worked if absolutely nothing went wrong with our travel plans. Another plan we flirted with was for some of us to dip out of Macworld on Thursday for a day-trip to Vegas, and that’s almost what ended up happening. But I surveyed the industry and learned that not only were most iPod-centric companies choosing Macworld over CES, most of the ones choosing CES weren’t rolling out new iPod-related products (with a few notable exceptions).
If this made sticking to Macworld and only Macworld a fairly easy decision, the fact that Apple (and whatever iPod-related stuff it had on tap) would be in San Francisco and not Vegas made it even easier for us. I’m not familiar with this publication (thanks to MacBytes for the link), but they seem to be thinking the same thing that I’ve been thinking. I know that for many (perhaps most) segments of the tech industry, CES is the more relevant show of the two. But when it comes to buzz, I’ll put it this way: no one was standing around Macworld talking about anything that had been unveiled at CES.
That’s not to criticize CES. There is in fact enough iPod-related hubbub going on there that I was extremely pleased to find out that the schedulers have decided to put away their pissing contest (at least for a year) and schedule the two shows on consecutive weeks in early 2008 instead of on the same week. CES is January 7-10, while Macworld is January 14-18. So iProng will do both shows for sure, although I’m not sure the size of the staff we’ll bring to the former.
Three down days in between is just enough time to not want to head cross-country to get home and back, so it looks like I’ll finally get to take that direct flight from Las Vegas to San Francisco after all. And seeing how complicated the prep work was for this year’s Macworld Expo (corresponding with approximately seventy-five iPod-centric exhibitors), I can’t wait to see what next year’s dual-show prep work will look like. But hey, at least it’ll be a new challenge.
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