Gadget popularity bodes well for CES

By Kevin Rademacher / Staff Writer

A bank of televisions appears above attendees of the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show. Photo by R. Marsh Starks / Staff file photo

Driven by consumers' appetite for MP3 music players, digital cameras and hundreds of other electronics gadgets, analysts with the Consumer Electronics Association expect electronics spending to increase by 9 percent this year.

Since 2000, total factory sales of consumer electronics have jumped from $96 billion to $158 billion.

That's great news for the industry and even better for Las Vegas' largest trade show, the annual Consumer Electronics Show. The 2006 version of CES, which runs Jan. 5-8, has already seen a record 1.66 million square feet of exhibit space leased, and attendance is expected to be well north of 130,000 people, said Karen Chupka, CEA's vice president for events and conferences.

"By all indications, it's shaping up to be an exciting show," she said. The show this year is spilling over from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Center, gobbling up additional space at the Sands Expo Center for its Innovations Plus center. There the show will tout such electronics developments as robotics and Internet-based television.

Beyond those confines, Chupka said CES will feature three major themes: entertainment everywhere, screens any size, any shape and everywhere and product connectivity, from home-based wireless networks to "What else can I do with my iPod."

As more products begin to focus on providing on-demand entertainment -- from TiVo to iPods to portable gaming devices -- content providers, such as Disney and a host of other motion picture houses and television networks, are descending on the Las Vegas show, Chupka said.

"I definitely get the feeling that Hollywood is excited about this," she said. "When you look at the attendee list and who's preregistering, it's the Weather Channel and Entertainment News. People are looking for business partners."

The Consumer Electronics Show has called Las Vegas home since abandoning frigid Chicago in 1978.

The show attracted 42,676 attendees and pumped $14.6 million into the local economy in its first year in Las Vegas. It also marked the first major business gathering to set up shop in Las Vegas.

Speaking at a preview event in October, Rossi Ralenkotter, now president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, was an authority staff member back in 1978, and he recalled that first Las Vegas CES.

Ralenkotter also cited the more than 140,000 attendees who gathered for CES in 2005, injecting $207.3 million in nongaming economic impact into the local economy.

"What (CES) has done for us is amazing," he said.

Kevin Rademacher covers utilities and finance for In Business Las Vegas. He can be reached at (702) 259-4069 or by e-mail at kevinr@lasvegassun.com.

IBLV Homepage