A quarter of attendees

According to its official cite, CES returned ‘home’ to Las Vegas in 2022. In fact, one of most influential trade shows in Las Vegas offered only digital in 2021. However, it offered both in-person event and digital in the beginning of 2022. As a result, over 40,000 attendees participated it in person, including 1800 global media, across 11 indoor and outdoor venues. What’s more, 30% of attendees traveling from outside the US, and they represented 119 countries.

Even though 1800 global media attended the event, our research correspondent decided not to do so. He actually reserved both flights and hotels in October and was looking forward to going there. However, the new variant, Omicron, changed the situation since November, 2021. For example, if we travel internationally, we will need to get a COVID-19 viral test no more than 1 day before departure to enter the US. This is just an example. Each country sets new policies and change them suddenly.

In addition, big companies such as Google, General Motors, Waymo, IBM and Mercedes-Benz, decided not to exhibit a week before the event. Also, The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) made a big decision on December 31st, 2021. It was that CES would be closing one day early and the in-person event would take place on January 5-7. Therefore, our research correspondent felt lots of uncertainty to go there just few weeks before the event. Other people experienced the similar thing. As a result, the number of attendees in 2022 was almost a quarter compared to 2020.

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