Rival To Comdex Show Considered
from the fighting-trade-shows dept
For years, the story about Comdex is that it just doesn't attract the type of crowds it used to, and people wonder why it still exists at all. So, what's the logical thing for other tradeshow producers to do? Why not copy Comdex? That's right, the new strategy appears to be to copy a failure. It was just a few hours ago that we reported that the company that puts on Comdex each year, Key3Media, is bankrupt, and already the NY Times is reporting that two different groups are planning competing trade shows in Vegas at the same time as this year's Comdex. One is from Alan Meckler's Jupitermedia, and would be called the Computer Digital Expo (which, I imagine, will make lawyers drool over just how "confusingly similar" it appears to "Comdex"). Meckler, of course, founded the Internet World set of tradeshows. He says he thought about buying Key3Media, but felt that they "could not be brought back from the dead". This prompted the obvious quip from Key3's chairman saying, "He must be thinking of Internet World, which no longer has exhibitors." The other group looking to start a competing show is headed by the guy who originally created Comdex, though there are few details surrounding that rumor. No matter what, though, it appears there will be no shortage of technology shows in Vegas this fall for most companies to ignore as they gear up for CES next January. Update News.com has their own story about the Computer Digital Expo that doesn't require registration like the NY Times story. In this one, they quote Meckler as saying that, "not only was Key3 a broken company but Comdex was a broken show." Apparently, there's no love lost between these two.
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