200,000 people in backpacks wander around four convention spaces crammed with the latest products that technology has to offer, sell, or propose. In just a few short days, these 200,000 walk the Venetian/Sands Expo and the North, Central, and South convention halls, clutching cups of complimentary coffee from this Danish booth or that, rushing through crowds to get to the next personalized audio experience in a suite somewhere, or get their badge scanned to win a new 360° video camera.
This is the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it has something to show you.
I arrived at CES on Tuesday afternoon just in time for ShowStoppers, an exclusive press-only event with over one hundred hand-picked companies, and stayed in Las Vegas until Friday afternoon. My collective three complete days at the show were spent speaking with company representatives on the show floor, in private suites, and at private parties. I tackled the convention spaces day by day, spending the first at the Venetian/Sands, the second at South and Central, and the third at North and South again. Still, the absolute and incomprehensible vastness that is 200,000 people and endless booth spaces means that I saw less than 25% of what CES had to offer me. It was a crowded room spilling into another crowded room, with one end leading off to a crowded hallway to take you to more crowded rooms, and so on and so on forever. It was a vision of the Kantian sublime.
The products I did see and have samples of to test and review fall, like all things do, into three self-made categories: headphones, miscellaneous, and One Thing That Deserves Its Own Article. (Yes, I am a creative writing major! How did you know?) I directed most of my attention to technology that appeals to college students and to our students at the University of Arizona specifically.
You’re listening to KAMP Radio. My name is dj hannah, and up next I’ve got something to show you.
