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The Last Comdex?
linuxwrangler writes "Key3Media Group Inc. which produces the Comdex trade show may be unable to make it's debt payments and could declare bankruptcy. No decision will be made until after Fall Comdex opening on Monday. More info is available at Google News."
Key3Media did the last JavaOne too? Does this also mean trouble for that conference?
"Let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average." - A. W. Tozer
This is what happens when you throw free passes around like they're AOL CDs. Did anyone, ever actually pay to get into Comdex? Well, I suppose the techies and developers may have had to pay but pointy-haired bosses like me always got inundated with free passes from companies we'd never dream of buying from. No wonder it was never a great show...
I'm surprised that Windex---er..COMDEX is still around. A trade show generates interest by interesting, if not innovative product.
Between Microsoft's ability to buy, borrow, steal, or kill ideas or product that they haven't considered or cannot integrate into their operating systems, and a general lack of enthusiasm in the PC industry to think of more ideas that could be stolen, it doesn't surprise me that there's little interest.
I really can't contrast COMDEX's imminent demise to successful shows such as Macworld Expo because Apple has a captive audience of vendors that support their products. COMDEX doesn't have such luxury.
COMDEX should rethink its audience. It's pretty obvious that they have just let things ride over the past few years.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Not to forget the Casino owners...
Interesting side note regarding Las Vegas hotels. For years now they've measured the level of business by how many people they have to turn away. In other words, when they have a "bad month" in Vegas, all that means is that (citywide) they turned away only 30,000 people looking for accomodations, rather than the usual average of 45,000 (numbers are for illustration purposes only, but order of magnitude is close).
I reckon if COMDEX goes feet up it'll hardly be noticed.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
My dad took me to my first Comdex many years ago. He had received free tickets as a business owner. When we got there my sometimes air-headed dad examined the ticket package, ripped off the "unimportant" parts of the paper, and threw the pieces in the garbage. Taking what he thought were the tickets up to the ticket collecter, we then found out that he had thrown out the ticket and kept the advertising crap that came with it.
"No problem," the nice lady said, "I'll get you new tickets."
I'll venture a guess and say that tickets weren't how they made money. Once the tech downturn hit I'm sure their booth revenue went way down. This doesn't surprise me one bit.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Because Key3media is one of the most ANNOYING companies on the planet?
They sent me constant spam for months after the last Comdex I signed up for (free passes, btw) and their remove links never did anything.
Eventually I found the homepage of the comdex project group on they key3 site and sent every member of the group a 700K image with nothing but the word 'remove' in it. (I think I accidentally crashed their mailserver too, it must have been one of those ones that made a copy of the mail for every person as opposed to linking it.)
No more spam after that, but damn, a company does not become liked by harassing people that interface with them! I certainly did not go to comdex after that.