By Day Three of four-day CES 2019, reality had set in for most of the few high-end audio exhibitors who set up shop in the Venetian: the curtain has closed on CES as “the place” for high-end audio product introductions and business transactions. Several of the smaller companies I spoke with were already done with waxing nostalgic on the glory days of CES—an era when there were so many distributors, dealers, and journalists clogging the hallways and rooms that some exhibitors had to either close up shop at the factory or recruit extra help to cater to everyone. After wiping tears from their eyes, they had decided to move on.
Exhibiting in the Venetian and LVCC (Las Vegas Convention Center) has grown so expensive—four nights of lodging for one person at the Treasure Island Hotel, across from the Venetian, cost a ridiculous $2068!—and the response so meager that exhibitor after exhibitor vowed not to return. Those larger companies who will return because their reach extends beyond high-end consumer audio—KimberKable, for example, whose exhibit will shift to the LVCC, where they’ll set up next to Sony, for whom they supply many cables—will bring even less staff, or abandon bigger suites for smaller ones. Others, such as Harman International, will probably remain off-site (although the Hard Rock Café is about to change ownership and reopen under another name).
Many will bid adieu with deep regret. “We exhibit here because rooms in the Venetian sound much better than at Munich,” said the owner of one multiple-award-winning company at the end of the first day. One day later, upon acknowledging that a lot of visitors to his room were potential consumers taking time off from their industry-related work to slum amidst the sonic splendor, said manufacturer was repeating the mantra, “We need a US B2B [business-to-business] show.”
Need and reality, however, are different things. There is no industry-only high-end show in the US, and the press and industry days at consumer-oriented shows have so far proven to be a huge, patchily attended flop. Instead, most companies have found ways to conduct industry-related business while welcoming the general public at AXPONA, the High End show in Munich, and Rocky Mountain Audio Fest.
It’s time to stop lamenting the past and things that no longer exist. Instead, put the money wasted on trips to Las Vegas into bringing sufficient room treatment and effective tweaks to consumer shows, and hiring extra staff to run your exhibit while you, the owner(s), conduct business in the corner of a restaurant. As for lamenting that fewer and fewer people seem to have the time, room, and inclination for the high-end experience, how about acknowledging that more people than ever are listening to music, albeit through smart phones, and finding ways to bring audiophile-grade sound to that enormous market?
While the lowly Serinus does not call the shots, I find it difficult to imagine that Stereophile will return to Las Vegas in 2020. Not when most new-product unveilings are now scheduled for the three above-mentioned shows—Munich above all—or other shows in Europe and Asia. For no more—probably less—than it cost to send me to Las Vegas, I could have easily covered the Munich show.
Yes, the curtain has surely closed on CES. No more need to wash every item of clothing to remove the cigarette smell, to avoid the people shoving flyers in your face, or to dodge the recorded voice of Ellen DeGeneres as she yells, “Hey you. Yeah, you. Come over here [and play this slot machine].” No more paying $50 for the same Chinese food that you can get elsewhere for $15. CES is dead. Long live high-end audio.
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