Consumer Electronics Show strong in Vegas

Mark it down folks, the naysayers are wrong. It's back.

Actually make that IT, as in Information Technology, as in IT is back.

I just spent the past two days in Las Vegas attending the 37th annual Consumer Electronics Show, and if I needed any confirmation that the technology sector was rebounding, I've got it.

With more than 110,000 individuals pre-registered to attend this testimony to consumer geekdom, CES has now supplanted COMDEX (at least for now) as the largest technology trade show in North America, and perhaps the world, in sheer number of attendees.

As a result, long cab and bus lines are the norm once again at a tech trade show in Sin City, as are jacked up hotel room rates.

And for some reason, the idiots at City Hall seem to think that the week of the largest tech show in the United States would be a great time to begin work (again) on such major thoroughfares as Paradise Road, choking traffic down to one lane. Like, duh! Las Vegas tax dollars at work once again ticking off conventioneers and residents alike, but I digress.

More than 2,300 companies from around the globe have opted to exhibit at this year's show, filling all of the North and Central Halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, as well as both floors of the still relatively new South Hall.

And if you've never been inside the South Hall of the LVCC, it's massive, as in 1,700 feet long and 300 feet wide — on the inside — which means you could fit more than 20 football fields inside the South Hall with 10 fields on each floor.

This also means the ability to pack a lot of tech gear in booths ranging from 1,000 square feet to more than 20,000 square feet.

Oh yeah, there were CES exhibits set up inside the Las Vegas Hilton and the Alexis Park Hotels too.

Adding to the hubbub and bedlam at CES are the more than 4,000 journalists and industry analysts that have also swooped into town looking for the next big thing in the hopes of scooping their competition.

Scrambling to grab their share of the spotlight and jump-start 2004 sales revenues are 14 Utah companies participating as exhibitors in this year's show, making it one of the top years for Utah companies exhibiting at CES.

The typical CES suspects from Utah were exhibitors, such as Midvale-based Phonex Broadband and Draper-based American Covers.