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Trying to save the Comdex trade show
By David Kirkpatrick
(FORTUNE.COM) -- Fred Rosen had bad timing. He took over the Comdex technology trade show in March 2000, the same month tech stocks began the sickening plunge downward. Rosen had made a lot of money building up and selling Ticketmaster, where his brash exploits were legendary. Now his idea was to use the gigantic Vegas extravaganza--the trade show of all trade shows--as a base to build an even larger operation doing shows for a variety of industries. But with the downturn in technology, the hordes diminished. While last year Comdex still attracted 125,000 attendees, that's down from the 200,000 or so it regularly got until 2000. Now Rosen is just trying to keep Comdex alive. He's out beating the bushes for this year's show, November 17-22. He has lots of promotional-minded things to say about the 1000 exhibitors, the keynotes from Gates, Fiorina, McNealy, Fox Corp.'s Peter Chernin, and others, the savvy topics he's focusing on, and the quality of the CIO-type attendees he continues to attract. But at breakfast in New York's St. Regis Hotel last Friday, a typically blunt Rosen criticized many in the tech industry his show is meant to serve. "This is the industry event," he said, "and the industry needs to support it." He's not so concerned about attendees--he expects about the same number as last year, and he gets the kind of people he wants--CIOs and corporate techies. What galls him is that while paid exhibitors have been dropping out, many continue to come to Las Vegas. "They take hotel suites," he complained. "It's disingenuous. You can't have it both ways. If you drain the river too far the riverbed becomes dry. I don't want to see the headline 'Comdex at Risk,' but it's accurate." Self-serving? Of course. But he has a point. If Comdex is crippled or disappears it won't be just Rosen who loses out. And it's true that many companies--even major ones--don't support Comdex in any material way but come to town to draw its crowds to their own private events. Most people don't appreciate the unique role of conferences in the technology industry. This has historically been a bunch of people (mostly guys) who like to get together and hang out and talk shop--products, trends, industry problems, whatever. No other industry hosts anywhere near so many summits, roundtables, forums, shows, and conferences. Part of it stems from the counter-culture roots of the PC industry. The early hobbyists and programmers really were a technology counter-culture, and they banded together for mutual support. That ethic of getting together and hashing things out continues to this day, but barely. I've just been at two excellent meetings that felt in jeopardy. Agenda is the mother of all PC-industry gatherings, but this year attracted only 250 people--and mostly not the big-company CEOs of the past. ETRE had a similar feel. The European-American gathering of tech companies and financiers moves from city to city in Europe, and still drew well over 500 attendees to Seville, Spain. But the mood was dismal, and organizer Alex Vieux made little effort to mask his disappointment at the industry's tepid support for his event. Just because tech is slow now doesn't mean it won't boom later. But many of the deals and ideas that seeded growth in the past emerged from events like Agenda, Comdex, and ETRE. It's amazing how many companies in the past got funded, how many mergers thought up and partnerships established at these meetings--Comdex most of all. If these events shrivel, critical platforms for innovation and growth will have been lost. Rosen is right when he says that many in tech are shortsighted. "Companies who are conserving their cash today don't realize that when the sun comes back you can't always regain share," he said. "Auto companies market their way through recessions, and tech companies have to learn to do the same thing." He notes, too, that many of the biggest--and smartest--tech companies already understand this. "For Microsoft, Samsung, Cisco, IBM, Nokia, Dell, and HP it's about taking market share in bad times. They recognize that though we're in a storm the seas will eventually calm." He did note, though, that not all of those are Comdex exhibitors. A huge portion of what I've learned about technology came from going to these events. Yet until my breakfast with Rosen I wasn't planning to go to Comdex this year. I can't solve his problem of corporate leeches who rely on his show but are too cheap to buy a booth. But he did convince me to go myself.
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