The Hub: Viva Las Vegas!

Forgive me if some of this is elementary. I don't know how much you know about the Las Vegas shows.

The Big Kahuna is CES: the International Consumer Electronics Show, a giant trade-show-cum-party thrown by CEA, the Consumer Electronics Association. Now, there are really several CESs; what you see on TV with the gadget gurus takes place in a couple of huge convention centers, featuring displays of software, TVs, all kinds of stuff from about 2,500 companies (CES website), with keynote speeches from the likes of Steve Ballmer. The show is immense, hugely bureaucratic, and painfully expensive for exhibitors.

This whole shebang is a TRADE show, which means attendees have to produce business cards or proof of professional allegiance in order to gain entrance. It's not like RMAF, where newbies stroll in, check out some 'phones, maybe buy a coupla discs or downloads. Think of CES as WHOLESALE, and RMAF as RETAIL. CES is primarily selling product to potential distributors or dealers; that does occur at RMAF, but most of the pitching is to end-users.

The CES most audiophiles care about is a tiny corner of the show called the High-Performance Audio exhibits. A few hundred exhibitors are tucked away in stripped-out hotel rooms (admittedly, very NICE stripped-out hotel rooms) on the upper floors of the Venetian Hotel. A few of the bigger players occupy ballrooms on the lower floors, which can be tricky; while the ballrooms are large and impressive, they are also tremendously echoic, with severe bleed-through from neighboring rooms. Without proper set-up, the sound can be "a chamber of horrors", as one well-known reviewer defined it for me last year.

So, how big a show are we talking about? The CEA's own figures pegged 2008 attendance at about 141,000; last year, called by cynical veteran attendees "the deadest in memory", dropped to about 113,000. While still a heckuva lot of people, it did mean you could make your way down the hallways of the audio exhibits without apologizing to someone every five feet for stepping on their toes or elbowing them in the ribs. As such things go, it was comfortable, which is NOT how show-producers like it.

Of those six-figure body-counts, how many make it through the audio exhibits? I've never been able to get official numbers from CEA (and yes, I have asked), but unofficially, I've been told 5,000. Obviously, that's a tiny fraction of the show's overall attendance; given that RMAF this year had 3,700 attendees, much lower costs and a much cooler vibe, the CES audio exhibits may be losing some of their influence.

As if shows in other parts of the country weren't enough of an annoyance, CES has The Home Entertainment Show (T.H.E. Show) right in its own backyard. T.H.E. began in 1998 as the cross-town, laid-back cousin to CES' audio exhibits; exhibitors were often smaller and tweakier than their uptown counterparts.

This year, THE has moved from its old home at the Alexis Park to the Flamingo, just down the block from the Venetian. While CES' audio exhibits are contracting, THE's are more numerous than ever, featuring well-known audiophile brands like Magnepan, VMPS, Atma-Sphere and Kondo (view full list).

THE's attendance policies fall halfway between RMAF and CES; trade attendees are welcomed, but so are members of audio societies. While there's generally no free lunch in life, there is at THE.

So, which show? For me, the choice is easy: both. See you there? I'll be the tired-looking sweaty guy in a suit. That should narrow it down for you!