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Electronics Show May Lack Usual Glitz

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By PETER SVENSSON

The Associated Press

Published: January 5, 2009

The International Consumer Electronics Show, the largest trade show in the United States, opens this week in Las Vegas with a full slate of giant TVs and inventive gadgets, despite the pall of a recession hanging over the industry.

The economic downturn will temper the normally dizzying extravaganza.

"I'm talking to the companies who are sending people, and they're sending two instead of 10," said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey. "It's going to be a shadow of itself."

Last year, 140,000 people went to the show, and there were 2,700 exhibitors. The Consumer Electronics Association, which is hosting, expects the same number of exhibitors this year for the 42nd annual show, but on a slightly smaller floor space: 1.7 million square feet, or about 29 football fields. That's down three football fields from last year.

Jason Oxman, senior vice president of industry affairs at CEA, said several companies have asked to buy meeting-room space, rather than booths on the showroom floor.

Oxman expects more than 130,000 attendees, based on the number who have registered.

The economy will not likely have a big effect on what manufacturers are showing, in large part because consumer spending was relatively healthy until late in the year, and companies haven't had time to adjust.

It wasn't until the holiday shopping season, after the credit crunch had turned into a full-blown crisis, that consumers really pulled back. U.S. sales of electronics and appliances fell almost 27 percent from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 according to SpendingPulse, a division of MasterCard Advisors.

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