Both PMA and CES recently provided the press with previews of what to expect at their upcoming trade shows in early 2008.
CEA president and CEO Gary Shapiro said at the organization’s Industry Forum in San Diego, CA., last week that the upcoming 2008 CES – besides all the customary bells and whistles attendees have come to expect at the annual Las Vegas convocation – will feature a bevy of new programs that focus on content, cars and technology development in emerging countries.
The show will also have two panels – one after the other – trained on the subject of the analog-to-digital TV conversion and on the industry’s DTV coupon program, on Monday, Jan. 7.
The show is expected to attract 2,700 exhibitors to 1.7 million square feet of floor space and 25,000 international attendees from 140 countries. “Our long-term strategy is to provide excitement and value within the show,” Shapiro said.
The content contingent at CES will be represented by a Central Hall exhibit hosted by NBC/Universal and by keynoters Brian Roberts of Comcast and Jerry Yang of Yahoo!
Ways that CES is defining itself anew as a mobile electronics retailer and manufacturer destination include the featuring of keynoter Rick Wagoner, GM’s chairman and CEO, the presence of BMW’s Pit Lane Park, where attendees and consumers can watch live stunt racing and meet Formula One experts, and various TechZones geared to mobile.
A special conference program zoning in on the role consumer technology is increasingly playing in developing countries will feature keynoter Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop per Child project, and there will be a sustainable technology TechZone. CEA is also contributing $100,000 in scholarship funding to help other countries send its youth to CES, in league with the Department of State, the United Nations and the Peace Corps.
The show’s Industry Insider Series will also feature an International Retail Power Panel to which Brad Anderson of Best Buy and Phil Schoonover of Circuit City have committed, among others.
Shapiro added that CEA is not looking to expand the aggregate number of attendees in 2008 over the past years, where the figure has hovered between 140,000 and 150,000. “We will give more careful scrutiny to online registrants, especially Nevada and California applicants” in that attendance control effort, due to tight availability of hotel facilities for housing attendees. “The years 2008 and 2009 will be tight,” he said. Karen Chupka, senior vice president of events and conferences, explained that the challenge is in that “although the show attracts 150,000, there are only about 132,000 rooms in Las Vegas” at present. Although there has been continuing construction of hotel rooms and at least 45,000 rooms are slated to come on line within three to five years, in the past two years, with the razing of the Stardust Hotel, the city lost 2,000 rooms. The show runs Monday, January 7 through Thursday, Jan. 10.
PMA held there annual press event in New York, also last week, and announced several new wrinkles have been added to the show for 2008. While the pre-show press event primarily focused on their recent collaboration with 6Sight and that event on November 7 and 8, PMA did reveal that they are continuing to tweak the annual imaging extravaganza in an effort to keep pace with an industry that seems to be changing on a daily basis.
Toward that end, PMA announced that they will not be exhibiting a third installment of the Complete Picture, Inspiration Center booth, instead unveiling what they called “The PMA Smart Store” exhibit. “We felt the Complete Picture concept had run its course,” explained PMA’s Gary Pageau, Content Development/Strategic Initiatives. The PMA Smart Store exhibit will essentially pick up where the Complete Picture left off, with a much more hands on approach to retail in the 21st century.” PMA added that as the face of retail continues to change, the show will address those changes with additions like The PMA Smart Store moving forward
Also new this year for PMA is the fact both Memory Trends Conference & Expo (an annual retail scrapbook show and educational sessions) and WEVA (the Wide World of Weddings & Events Show) are co-locating their annual shows with PMA. No additional registration is needed to attend both of these events if you have registered for PMA 2008. Both events are also happening in other parts of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Both PMA and Memory Trends shows will be located adjacent to one another with PMA taking up the South Hall and Memory Trends residing in the Central Hall. The PMA Smart Store will be located in the connector that joins both the LVCC’s Central and South Halls.
With the photo book market continuing to rev its engine, PMA has also added a program dubbed the DIMA Photo Book Showcase, an exhibit that will allow attendees to compare various aspects of photo book production including user interface, templates and binding options, along with overall quality.
PMA has also set up a blog site that will be updated as new information becomes available and provide news such as hotel and airfares as well as interesting happenings in Las Vegas during PMA dates. The site can be accessed at www.pma08blog.org. All this plus over 200 educational business sessions have show organizers counting down the days with great anticipation.
With both shows only weeks apart, prepare yourselves for a heavy dose of Elvis, slots and Super Bowl talk as January 2008 is truly showtime!
