2012 Trade Show Season is Starting

Time to say hello to a new year of great new inventions and products.

As has been the case in years past, the industrial trade show season kicks off with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and with the Sports Licensing and Tailgating Show during the week of January 10-15 in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Your Invention Guru was there.  There were big companies, little companies, international companies, and even individual inventors all next to one another reaching for the elusive brass ring.

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Sports Licensing and Tailgating Show

Neil Montgomery at the Sports Licensing and Tailgating Trade Show

January 11-13 the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas hosted the Sports Licensing and Tailgating trade show exhibiting licensed trademarked products to buyers across the country.  Next to the many successful products looking to expand their distribution were hopeful new products from inventors working on a shoestring in search of a licensing deal and a taste of the big leagues.  Everywhere you looked you could see products emblazoned with every NFL® team logo; college logos from the north, south, east and west; the NHL®; MLB®; NBA®; and NASCAR®.  You name it – it was there… and then some.

I spent time at the Putter Around The House™ and Tailgate Golf ™ booth watching buyer after buyer stop by to talk business.  As many of you know, my son Neil is the inventor of these two games while serving as President of Ad-Gen, a business-to-business advertising and product promotional company.  I overheard business discussions regarding where best to get products made, who has the lowest price for full-color display boxes, how United Parcel Service’s 4.9% increase in shipping costs will affect sales, whether the U.S. economy is starting to bounce back or perhaps Europe is truly volatile, what online sales sites can do better than brick and mortar stores, and so on.  You see, there is much more to a successful product than just a good idea.

Sports and racing in America is a growing multi-billion dollar industry with sports licensing becoming a bigger and bigger part of the pie. Tailgating at all sorts of events, including concerts, has exploded into a growth industry of its own.  Inventors in companies, and by themselves in garages, are creating new products to fill the seemingly insatiable desire for all things sports and tailgating.  Of course, reality tells us that not every product will be a winner, but this January at the 2012 Sports Licensing & Tailgating Show, hope springs eternal in everyone’s heart.

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Consumer Electronics Show

The Invention Guru: Robert Montgomery and his wife Marcy at the CES show in Las Vegas

Most of us remember from school the opening line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities:  “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

It was as if Dickens were writing about the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show held January 10-13 at the Las Vegas Convention and Sands Convention Centers.  Local television commentators estimated that 180,000 CES attendees had descended upon the city.  It must be “the best of times.”

But just as everything was happily getting started, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer shook the trade show to its quick with his Keynote Speech.  2012 will be Microsoft’s last CES and he expected more companies will choose not to let the timing of CES rule their new product announcements.  Although Ballmer didn’t come right out and say that CES will join most other industry trade shows into a decline, one could read between the lines.  With one speech, it suddenly became “the worst of times.”

Dickens’ next phrase was: “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.”  2012 CES exhibited products, and announced even more future products, showing without a doubt that we are living in “the age of wisdom.”  As for “foolishness,” CES had computer based games of every ilk.   And, in January 2012 while walking through the miles and miles of exhibits, there is no doubt that the human race has a “belief” in technological wonderments that are perfectly “incredulous.”

What will come of the CES in years ahead is left to be seen.  I’m sure that it will remain important as a gathering call for the most technologically advanced of our species.  What will no doubt change is the timing of new product announcements by companies.  Severed forever are the chains to the second week of January.  And just as importantly, products not meeting the CES deadline will no longer suffer the stamp of failure.  Companies will introduce new products when it is best for the company without risking getting lost in the noise of hundreds of other introductions at oneLas Vegas trade show.

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Epilogue:

Las Vegas appears to be coming back from some bad economic times.  Stalled buildings like The Fontainebleau are finally being finished.  New structures are going up.  More people are staying in the hotels and eating in the restaurants.  These are very good signs that the end of the biggest downturn since the Great Depression may be coming to an end.