What a shock! Comdex 2004 has been canceled. Apparently Comdex needs time to restructure and plan where Comdex should be heading. Comdex over the past few years hasn't been generating the buzz that it use too. If Comdex needs a year off to restructure I'm all for it.
Computer trade show Comdex, once the biggest event on the tech calendar, has been canceled this year, a victim of the growing interest in shows emphasizing consumer electronics and specialist IT gear.
Eric Faurot, vice president of Comdex organizer MediaLive International, revealed the plans in an exclusive interview with CNET News.com, saying the company plans to give Comdex a breather after years of falling attendance, in the number of both attendees and vendors. "We feel that while we could run Comdex profitably this year, it really wouldn't serve the interests of the broader IT industry," he said. The international versions of the show are expected to continue as planned. Faurot maintained that Comdex, which has a long-term contract with the Las Vegas Convention Center running through 2007, would be back in 2005. Key to that return, however, is the ability of a newly formed advisory board comprising major vendors to rally support for the annual conference.
Comdex traces its roots to a casino owner who launched the Computer Dealers Exposition in 1979. Four years later a young Bill Gates delivered his first keynote speech and demonstrated Microsoft's new DOS 2.0. Although it grew to become one of the biggest trade shows in the world, at its peak attracting more than 200,000 attendees and filling more than 1 million square feet of floor space, Comdex's fortunes have sagged in the past few years as the tech economy faltered and security jitters kept some companies from traveling.
News source: ZDNet
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