Last January, in Las Vegas, a record 170,000 people attended the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show. Most of them neither saw nor heard a trace of high-end audio gear. Not only was all mention of what CES calls "high performance audio" absent from the show's official Attendee Guide, but the hallways of the Venetian Tower, which in past CESes were filled with high-end manufacturers, dealers, and distributors, were anything but crowded.
Given the steady decline, in recent years, in CES attendance by high-end audio distributors and dealers, many observers were not surprised by the decreased traffic in rooms, or by seeing fewer familiar faces, or by the relatively short waits for elevators. But even after learning that one well-known high-end company, Parasound, had chosen not to exhibit, and that another, PS Audio, had opted for closed meetings rather than an open demo room, I was unprepared for the shock of discovering numerous well-known high-end companies MIA. Even more astounding: The rooms those companies might have occupied were now filled by a host of technology companies with no relationship to high-end audio.
Equally shocking were the huge increases in the prices of almost everything. My Uber driver, who collected from me a disgusting 5.2x "surgecharge," told me that hotel rooms that had cost $100 the week before were going for $500 during CES. Virtually every industry person with whom I spoke in Las Vegas complained of how the greed was out of control. To quote Carolyn Counnas of Zesto Audio—who, with her husband, George, also chose not to exhibit this year—"I hate being criminally ripped off."
"Exhibiting in CES might have at one time been a reasonable economic proposition for many, but it is no longer," Parasound President Richard Schram wrote in a post-show e-mail. "The money we would spend on CES can be spent far more effectively in other ways . . . In my opinion high-end audio doesn't belong in CES because we can't ever receive the attention, signage, etc. that are appropriate. Most of our companies are small and the least capable of affording inflated hotel prices, and our customers [are] ill-inclined to deal with long taxi lines and crowded restaurants."
Instead of spending over $25,000 to mount a major exhibit, Schram flew to Las Vegas unaccompanied, and met with clients in the Venetian's Grand Lux Cafe. "Preparations for exhibiting at CES formerly diverted my entire staff's attention, and our business was always weaker before and during the show," he reported. "But this year, we did more business in the first week of January than in the first three weeks of any previous January. In my meetings, I received only praise for my decision not to exhibit, and envy from colleagues and friends who will not exhibit in CES 2017."
Again and again, exhibitors cited US visa restrictions as a major impediment to attendance by their Asian distributors and dealers. Folks from Indonesia, it seems, were especially hard hit.
Of the close to 20 industry veterans with whom I discussed the future of CES in my four days at the show, only two said that CES remains their most important US venue for meetings between manufacturers, dealers, and distributors. Instead, many noted that the three major US consumer shows—AXPONA, the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, and T.H.E. Show Newport Beach/Irvine—have supplanted CES as gatherings where they can conduct business in relatively friendly environments.
Virtually everyone also mentioned High End, held each May in Munich and promoted as a consumer destination throughout that city and beyond. Those people told me that, from a business standpoint, it's the most productive show of all. In fact, by the last day of CES 2016, it had become clear that many wandering the hallways, like ghosts from the recent past, had set their sights on High End and the US consumer shows as viable alternatives to CES.
Joe Reynolds of Nordost, one of many who noted that a lot of his company's US dealers had skipped CES this year, called a spade a spade while pointing the way forward: "We are not served by the CTA [the Consumer Technology Association, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Association and the owner of CES] and never have been," he said. "We should have a North American High End Society that puts on a show comparable to what the industry-run Munich High End organization does in Munich."
Reynolds's idea has already had a trial run in North America. After the Chester Group canceled the 2016 installment of Montreal's once-vital Salon Son et Image—which they had bought, in 2013, from Michel Plante and Sarah Tremblay—SSI's former owners stepped into the gap. The couple quickly formed a new, industry-run, not-for-profit organization, Montreal Salon Audio, and resurrected the show under the new name. Their show, which offered free admission, was so successful that MSA immediately booked Montreal's Hotel Bonaventure for a return engagement during the last weekend of March 2017. According to Plante and Tremblay, what's most significant is that MSA is "a show for the industry, owned by the industry, and organized by the industry." Members of the industry-run board and of the new show's various committees will be announced this summer.
If people in the US high-end audio industry were to form an education-oriented, not-for-profit organization to mount one or more annual, industry-sponsored shows, they could do so at considerably lower cost to exhibitors than is presently possible at the Consumer Electronics Show. The money saved could be used to reach out to new constituencies and create a consumer-friendly destination event that, in time, could become eagerly anticipated and well attended. Out of the ashes of the high-performance audio segment of CES might arise a new show that serves consumers and industry alike.—Jason Victor Serinus
