Around four times fewer visitors came to the CES technology fair in Las Vegas this year than at the last event before the corona pandemic. The organizers spoke of more than 40,000 visitors after the event on Friday (local time). At the beginning of 2020, a good 171,000 participants had traveled to the desert city. CES 2021 was purely digital.
Cancellations and online presentations
For this year, the American trade association CTA had hoped for a big comeback as the organizer – but the Omikron variant thwarted the plans. On the home straight, well-known exhibitors such as Google, Amazon and General Motors canceled their presence at the trade fair and in some cases switched to online presentations.
At the booth of electronics giant LG, instead of the usual variety of products, there were only QR codes with links to online information to be seen. This time there was a lot of open space in the usually narrow exhibition halls. According to the CTA, more than 2,300 exhibitors came to Las Vegas. Two years ago it was a good 4,400.
More attention for remaining exhibitors
The number of journalists also fell significantly to around 1,800 from a good 6,500 two years ago. The CES is purely a specialist event for industry insiders and media representatives.
With the absence of other well-known names, remaining large exhibitors such as Sony, Samsung and Hyundai were able to attract even more attention to their announcements.
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(bme)