According to the exclusive story from Next Generation, in the next 48 hours there will be an announcement on the cancellation of E3, which "in its present form, has been cancelled for next year and the foreseeable future." According to ARS Technica, the show is not being cancelled but rather downsized, due to the show-within-a-show that E3 was becoming: it was the back channel meetings that were the real events. Okay, I came back from the last E3 all full of fun and excitement. Nothing is more exciting that seeing a big show, a la Comdex. The buzz, the excitement, the press ... it's like CES is.
But, the other flipside is that working at the last CES, it became apparent that the show has become too big - and, that is pretty much what killed Comdex. Not that that is going to stop me from going to CES, but it will be for client work again. Just not that into Vegas to go for my own enjoyment....
Did I get that vibe at E3? No, because if I can walk a show floor in a day, it's not too big. :) And, while I was there for work, it was a different vibe. The PR people I ran into where busy - as a whole - and I did catch a few TV crews. Joystiq has a interesting take on the news - from a journalist standpoint, gamer standpoint and sorta corporate standpoint. Plus, E3 is not in the bowels of Vegas, but rather downtown LA. It's a more entertainment show feel, celebrity and product driven.
I think there is a need for the shows to become more focused, to go back to less of the public showcase and more a press showcase. And, yes, that does include social media, but social media that has to have been in existence longer than one month, where that is just painfully obvious that some bubba started a blog to get into the new show.
Tags: CES, Comdex, E3, tradeshows, public relations, marketing, marcom, PR, marketing communications, Las Vegas
Photo credit by anearthling, aka Dave Coustan, the Earthlink blogger. His rights reserved, and him in the photo, and met him at BlogHer and he's a nice guy.
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