Saturday, January 13, 2018

CES 2018 is over.

Yes, CES 2018 the (Consumer Electronic Show) is over for this year and I am taking today to recuperate from all the walking I have done in the last four days. My phone automatically records how many steps I take each day and sometimes it reached 17,000 per day. Needless to say there was no partying at night for the last four days.

It was a tremendous show with about 178,000 people attending with more than 3900 exhibitors and more than 2.75 million square feet of exhibit space spread all across Las Vegas which makes it the largest show in CES history.

People come from every country in the world to attend. At times it is just a sea of humanity walking the show isles making it hard to get through.

The show was so large that it was impossible to see it all as it covered 6 very large convention halls and 7 hotels. I managed to see all 4 areas in the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) and the 2 floors of the Sands Expo center which are the main exhibit areas. To see more required too much time riding on a bus which cut into seeing the exhibits. There are large tents outside the halls which also feature companies or products geared to a narrower segment of the attendee’s. I don’t bother with many of those. I did however check out the Gibson Guitar building which has hundreds of guitars that people can try and buy if that is their wish. It also featured a large stage for shows but I don’t know if anyone was headlining there.

Speaking of headliners, many sports figures show up at vendor booths to help promote products. The pay is probably pretty good.

If someone can dream of a way to use electronics in a product it was at the show. From automobiles to motorcycles to drones to virtual reality to artificial intelligence to smart cities. It is called “the Internet of things” or IoT for short.

I did take some photos but I have been warned that using them may violate copy right laws so I will defer. Unfortunately, sometimes only a photo will do as an explanation, that being said, so I will go on to other subjects.

There are only 2 of us here this year, myself and my desert buddy Jeff. We stay downtown in a small RV park and drive to Circus-Circus casino each day to catch a shuttle bus to the exhibit halls. At the end of the day we do the reverse, dragging our tired bodies back to our RV’s. After we spend a few minutes exclaiming over the things we have seen or collected during the day (we call it SWAG) we walk to a nearby casino or restaurant for dinner (nothing fancy) and then take a walk down the Fremont Street Experience before we had back to our RV’s. We both sleep good.

Tomorrow I will buy groceries and then pick up Clyda from the airport. We will have dinner with friends who moved here a few years ago then get ready to leave for Quartzsite Monday morning.