CES’s newer West Lobby, the automotive tech venue, is a visual showcase of how the rest of the Las Vegas Convention Center is being redone. call to action
The upcoming annual Consumer Electronics Show (January 5th to January 8th), and again, this will be a hybrid event, taking place simultaneously in Las Vegas and inside a browser-based virtual meeting room, as was the case last year.
Back to Las Vegas
The Consumer Technology Association, the show’s decades-old sponsor, said the expanded scale of the physical Las Vegas venue for the 2023 show is a sign of enthusiasm. for face-to-face interactions although the digital element continues.
More than 100,000 attendees are the goal of CES, according to the association. Attendees came from 173 countries, territories and regions, and more than 4,700 members of the media were registered.
John T. Kelley, vice president and acting program director of CES, said in an interview with ZDNET in New York: “I think people are excited about CES, they’re excited to reconnect, they’re Excited to see you in person.” .
“We’re keeping the digital component the same, but the live component has made a bigger comeback this year,” said Kinsey Fabrizio, senior vice president of membership and sales at CES. For example, the total display floor this time is 70% larger than the previous one.
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Fabrizio said exhibitors unable to make it to the final show will return in 2023 with more than 3,100 exhibitors. He said about 1,000 of them were first-time exhibitors.
“They’re using the meeting rooms, in addition to their show space, which is a sign that they want to do business,” said Fabrizio of CES exhibitors.
“We also have a very high number of submissions for our Innovation Awards Program,” says Kelley.
Main topics and technologies to watch
Electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles
Fabrizio said that one of the main themes of CES 2023 is cars and vehicle mobility.
Those items were moved to the recently built West Hall (located across from Paradise Road to the current Las Vegas Convention Center) — in January, CES had its first tenants. Fabrizio said the space was sold out in West Hall.
CES also used the existing Central and North Halls, while the South Hall was razed as part of the a multi-part renovation of the Center.
The Central Lobby is connected to the West Hall via an underground tunnel created by Elon Musk’s Boring Company, which transports passengers in Teslas. Tunnel stations extend past West Hall to Resorts World hotel, across South Las Vegas Boulevard from Wynn, next to Circus, Circus.
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“You’ll find a lot of autonomous driving technology” in West Hall and electric vehicles, says Fabrizio, including Light Year, a maker of solar-powered electric vehicles. John Deere and Caterpillar will also be in West Hall, the latter potentially featuring a self-propelled tractor.
Along with automobiles, marine technology will have a large presence, including electric yachts, with brands like Volvo and all sorts of marine technology, said Fabrizio.
digital health
Another major theme is digital health technology, once again located in North Hall as before. Areas in digital health include sleep technology, digital therapy, mental health, and new diagnostic technologies.
“Over-the-counter hearing aids are a big problem we are seeing,” says Fabrizio. New regulations passed by the US FDA this year have loosened access to the devices, which means consumers can buy hearing aids without a prescription. (Congress passed easing-related legislation in 2017, and President Biden implemented an executive order this year; the CTA is instrumental in working with the FDA on implementation.)
The over-the-counter approach means “people don’t have to talk to a doctor,” says Kelley, removing some of the stigma about self-consciousness or embarrassment that can cause individuals to hesitate. about past use of hearing aids. .
“A lot of the companies that were present at CES are now releasing products for this category, and in fact some traditional hearing aid companies will also be there to showcase their range of devices,” said Fabrizio. their new over-the-counter hearing aid. .”
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Digital health will also include the “emergency department of the future,” an exhibition organized by the CTA and the American College of Emergency Physicians.
According to Fabrizio, the Emergency Department of the Future will feature “a combination of telemedicine as well as a lot of remote patient monitoring” to reduce congestion in emergency rooms and “let people can be classified in different ways.”
“And then there are just different devices in there, image analyzers, things to speed up the diagnostic process, the treatment.”
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AI, Robots and Metaverse
Sharing digital health with North Hall will be enterprise technology, including artificial intelligence, robotics, FinTech and Internet of Things.
The Venetian Hotel once again hosts a number of group exhibitions, in the old Sands Convention Center, including — for the second year in a row — a food technology exhibition, smart home catalog, as well as a catalog Accessories are very diverse Cosmetics.
Eureka Park, the tech startup cluster that has been going on for years now, will also be in Sands. More than a thousand startups will be exhibiting products at Eureka Park this year, from more than 20 countries. Ukraine Tech will also have a booth.
Mr. Kelley noted that the metaverse first came to the fore during CES, and this year it will be “pervasive throughout CES”. “We actually have a dedicated area in the Central Hall for Web3 [companies]; you’ll see hardware-focused companies there, like Magic Leap,” the augmented reality company that’s currently focusing on businesses using technology.
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Kelley said Microsoft will also join the Web3 area and a dedicated studio in the hall that will “have thought leaders from that community present on stage and discuss digital assets, blockchain technology, and more.” blocks, metadata,” Kelley said.
“I think Web3 will be discussed prominently throughout the show” of CES, Kelley said, “primarily focusing on the metaverse and NFTS [non-fungible tokens].”
Kelley said Web3 is appearing more and more in new applications. For example, start Olfactory Virtual Reality or OV R, is “adding a sense of smell to headphones, so now you can smell it in the metaverse,” says Kelley. One real-world application, he said, would be in emergency response training, such as smelling fire.
One recent collaboration was between BMW and chipmaker Nvidia, to showcase the factory of the future, Kelley said. Such partnerships are “the fundamental building blocks of what the future will look like” in the combination of the metaverse and Web3, he said.
“It’s great to see how much it has changed in a year beyond gamifying everything,” he said.
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“I think you will see on the show where companies will show you their physical products and then also roll out a metaverse extension,” says Fabrizio.
NFT
There’s a “fairly small” dedicated area in the Aria Hotel for NFTs, says Kelley, to give “opportunities for companies to at least get some branding so they can join the conversation.” there.”
Kelley said NFT, best known for stunts like The Bored Ape Club, is developing new uses in the industry. For example, in the event business, it becomes an access key for attendees, such as a party after party.
“As a holder of this NFT, you have access to the event, which is starting to become commonplace,” says Kelley. The same NFT can become a “unique passport” for brands to have a different type of connection with their consumers than email, he said. And of course, NFTs can be bought and sold in the marketplace.
Speech title
Leaders at this year’s show featured keynote speeches by AMD CEO Lisa Su, BMW President Oliver Zipse, John Deere CEO John May, Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian, and the others.
On the digital side of the show, as before, keynotes will be broadcast live and exhibitors have a digital pavilion where digital-only attendees can click to view the information. about the exhibitor.
“There are two things that we see as a result of COVID that people really like,” says Kelley. “One is the ability to view content after the event, so we’ll have over 100 sessions that you can watch after the event.”
“And then there’s also the ability to make better connections with certain exhibitors,” such as by searching for suppliers before a show and texting them to set up a meeting” and the ability to hold video meetings on the CES digital platform.
Kelley says search features – such as searching for exhibitors by category (e.g. metaverse) – have been enhanced.
“We’ve been refining our tools knowing that our audience has changed a bit because we have more digital audiences than we did before COVID, it was completely in-person.”
Life sciences giant Abbott is one of the major digital health exhibitors returning to CES. call to action
The magic of a trade show
Digital may never fully capture experience of live trade show, However. Consider the immense utility of face-to-face meetings. The CTA’s analysis found that companies at the actual show had 29 meetings on average, which means “29 fewer flights” that companies had to make, Kelley said.
And “everything is lost in the Zoom world,” notes Kelley, including possible chance encounters.
“You have random encounters,” says Fabrizio, “when you are waiting in line for coffee and you run into someone and you form a business relationship.”
“It’s the magic of a trade show, those random moments,” says Kelley.
All digital features are “a great add-on,” says Fabrizio, “but I think, when you see a product in your hand and actually touch it and experience it, there’s nothing wrong with that. is equal to”.
For media, CES starts earlier than the show floor: January 3. On that day, CES 2023 has an afternoon research briefing at the Mandalay Bay Hotel by women. CTA’s data center, followed by a pre-show exhibition called Unveiled, where journalists met several exhibitors with tables set up in the ballroom.
Then, on January 4, exhibitors spend the day in press conferences, where the media races to document the details of new product announcements — after, often , waiting in long lines to enter each press conference.
CES is not open to the public. It is open to exhibitors, members of the technology industry, and the press, and has a wide range of prices to attend (See frequently asked questions about registration here).
