The Consumer Electronics Show has closed its doors in Las Vegas for another year, with attendances back to 2008 levels, after two years of recovering from recession.
It certainly felt like it was back to the good old bad old days – with long lines at bus stops, taxi stands and the monorail, crowded halls and crashing communications. Preliminary attendance estimates from the Consumer Electronics Association bear this out with more than 140,000 people visiting the four-day event.
That compares with 127,000 in 2010, 113,000 in 2009 and 141,000 in January 2008.
International attendees rose 25 per cent to 30,000 – a record, beating the 28,000 figure in 2008.
This level of interest should create optimism for a sustained recovery for the industry. Maybe it can even shift all the scores of tablets, phones, notebooks, eReaders and 3D TVs on show?
There have also been more than 150,000 tweets about CES in the past week, according to the CEA.
“This global technology gathering featured more innovation, more news, more social media buzz and more international attendance than any other show in CES history,” said Gary Shapiro, CEA president, in a statement.
Richard Waters
Chris Nuttall
Maija Palmer
Robin Kwong
Tim Bradshaw