Exclusive: E3 Finished

[Wizz]

Update, this just in from ESA:
The new E3Expo will take shape over the next several months. As currently envisioned, it will still take place in Los Angeles, described by ESA as a “great and supportive partner helping to build E3.” It will focus on press events and small meetings with media, retail, development, and other key sectors. While there will be opportunities for game demonstrations, E3Expo 2007 will not feature the large trade show environment of previous years.
To read the full press release click here (http://www.theesa.com/archives/2006/07/for_immediate_r.php)
http://www.fpsadmin.com/images/e3banner.png
"The ESA will today seek to salvage some good from the wreckage of E3; but the spectacle that has held the industry in thrall for 12 years is at an end."

Full story here:

http://next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3538&Itemid=2

12 years are now gone and so it seems that E3 is also done for good.

Rudedog adds:There has been several reports that E3 will not be around next year. Then there is the reports that E3 will still be around but as big as they once where. I've spent over 8 years doing the largest computer related tradeshows including the now defunct COMDEX. I can tell you this, the shows promoters get very greedy and want more and more money from their exhibitors. I've also attended the last 2 E3s and will say LA is not the greatest place to hold a large event, with limited parking, terrible traffic and really bad hotels that are very far from the show, I could see this coming from a mile away.

Also the biggest part of the attendance, that I seen try and get in, where not your big new stand publications but made up of the hard core fan sites that wanted to get in to cover their game(s)/publishers/developers. This is a shame as these small sites bring more support to the above mentioned, more then any rag could do.

E3 needs to move from LA, possibly Vegas where they are known to be able to handle multiple E3, sized shows very easily. They also need to let the consumer and fan supported bloggers/sites in without having to sell a kidney. Even then the cost for a developer trying to make it big or get some experience under their belt, it cost an arm and a leg.

I assume today or tomorrow we will see an official word from the E3's show management, that will clarify what will happen to the show next year.

Other sites carring this news
- Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154897.html)
- arstechnica (http://www.fpsadmin.com/forum/arstechnica)

[rudedog]

Updated first post, the ESA released a press release today

http://www.theesa.com/archives/2006/07/for_immediate_r.php

[Wizz]

Here is the follow up story on why E3 died.

Source:

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3548&Itemid=2

By Colin Campbell

The picture accompanying this story sums up E3. It was about big-ness, most especially big crowds. We won't see scenes like this again. So why did the hardware manufacturers and big publishers decide E3 was no longer tenable? Why did the other publishers follow suit. Here are our ten reasons...
I was editor-in-chief of the Official E3 Show Daily in 2006, and a few of those produced in the late 1990s. I attended the first E3, and the last and most of the others in between.

I'm sorry that this event has gone, to be replaced by some new thing, much smaller in scale - more 'intimate' is the euphemism of the moment. It was a great way to meet and greet friends, allies and rivals in the business. It was exciting and fun and loud. It had its faults, but it acted as a focal point for the industry, before the summer's business of preparing for the Holidays really began.

It was an opportunity to take stock of the industry as a whole - the people, the products and the trends.

Many greeted the news that E3 had gone with shock. But, in reality, its days were numbered. Here's why...

1. The People Who Pay Weren't Happy
E3 was a great showpiece for the industry as a whole. But the industry as a whole does not pay for E3. Individual companies pay. They need to be able to demonstrate tangible benefits for that expense, just as they would for any other marketing cost. Those benefits were always difficult to justify, but had now become completely untenable. We understand some publishers still believe the show pays its way (for them individually). The trouble is, not enough companies took this view.

2. Four People Said 'Enough'
When I spoke to some people about E3's collapse, the general response was one of disbelief. How could something so big fall apart so quickly? Perhaps this is why so many news outlets simply refused to believe the news. The fact is that all it took were a very small number of company presidents to talk with each other, and figure out that if they all decided to pass, none of them would need to be there. Once Nintendo, Microsoft, SCEA and EA had stepped out, E3 was history. It was multilateral disarmament.

3. Media Irrelevance
There was a time when the game industry could enjoy its little May media window, as major news networks sent their reporters to the show to talk about the state of the industry. The fact that they usually filed stories on either videogame violence or new hardware launches that would have been reported anyway, seems to have been allowed to slide. These days, games are a major entertainment for people of most ages. News editors can't afford to just cover games during E3, or with a pre-Holidays buyers' guide. Games are always on the radar.

4. The 'E3 Winners' Farce
The 'who won E3?' contest beloved of we in the media had become a real problem. E3 is not a sporting contest, and yet it was increasingly seen as some form of championship. Every year we have one winner (2006: Nintendo; 2005: Sony etc.). Companies on this merry-go-round must sooner or later see that the value of winning one-in-three is not balanced by losing two in three.

5. Rise of Publisher Events
Media events held by companies to show off their own products offer publishers more control, lower costs and a more intimate atmosphere. They've been growing drastically in scale and importance. Without the burden of E3's expenses, this trend will continue, only more so. The downside of this is that, while larger companies can expect wide media coverage of their events. Smaller companies cannot make so much noise. The likely outcome will be more lavish events designed to attract jaded journalist. Or road-trips, in which companies make the effort to present their goods to the widest possible audience.

6. Common Sense
Then there's common sense. For example - Nintendo's aim at E3 was to get Wii into as many hands as possible. There must be better ways of doing this than spending $20 million making a bunch of developers and blog editors stand in a line for three hours.

7. The Internet
The Internet generally gets the blame for bringing old establishments to their knees, and this is no exception. Information is disseminated faster and at better resolution than ever. The need to go to Los Angeles to look at a game is somewhat negated when you can download a movie, or play a demo on Xbox Live. No, it's not the same, but it's close enough to make a difference.

8. The High Cost
Convention Centers the world over charge extortionate prices for mundane services and LACC is no exception. There is something extremely infuriating about being charged $20 for a sandwich, a soda and a packet of chips. E3 didn't die because of the price of sandwiches. But the fact that every single thing associated with the show cost a great deal of money was a contributing factor.

9. The Herculean Effort
E3 isn't just measured in terms of the cost of the booth, the floor-space, the party, the hotel, the flights etc. There's also the incredible amount of effort that goes into preparing for the show. Marketing teams are focused on E3 for a good six months of the year. Developers are whipped along as they try to get games ready for what is, essentially, an artificial deadline. It could be argued that this adds focus to development as projects near their conclusion, or it could be argued that it's an unnecessary diversion and a big pain in the arse. Publishers that focus on company-specific events are not under so much pressure to compete with the rest of the market for column inches, months before the real battle of competing for consumer dollars.

10. Big Shows are Passe
For all of the reasons above, massive pan-industry events are feeling the squeeze. In many industries, attendance figures are down, while companies seek to cut costs by camping outside these events, or by avoiding them altogether. Cities that hold these events are often criticized for ramping up hotel prices and gouging attendees. Ultimately, they are losing the cost / benefit analysis.

Whatever passes for E3 next May, Next-Gen will be there. It may be called E3. It may feature some people looking at games in a big room. There may even be some free drinks. But it ain't going to be E3.

[rudedog]

Again, from my trade show experience here are some examples of how the exhibitors are over charged and I would even go as far to say, ripped off:

First let me say here is how things work. The shows promoters and managers work a deal out with the local vendors (LACC approved of course) to not let anyone else sell Internet access, clean carpets, sell electricity....

Say I show up for my company, let's call it Rudedog Productions for the E3 event and I've paid for a small 10x10 booth. You pay for the space, then the carpet, then the booth itself (building on 10x10 space) then electric, Internet and lighting if needed. Some things you can bring yourself like building, lighting and of course your products. You even have to pay them to vacuum your own booth, they don't like you bringing your own because they could not charge you $200 to vacuum the 10x10 space you rented.

I rented some portable booth property (looks like office furniture). I have 3 boxes of lit I want to carry into the LACC. I bring my little portable luggage carrier to make my life easier. I get stopped by the wonderful shipping receiving guys, we call it draege. They state I can only carry boxes in, if I want to used any type of wheeled device, yes even my portable luggage carrier, I need to hire someone from the show to push that in and of course I will be charged for it. the reason I can't carry my boxes in it because all the close parking is taken by employees of the (enter CC name here). I have to pay 12 bucks a day to park a 1/2 mile away, in the back of the CC then I have to use the front entrance to carry my boxes in.

Then let's say they are using a fork lift, which I have to pay for to bring in one piece of my booth. We'll call this a wooden create 4'x4' by 6' tall. They will charge me by lb to move it in and take it out. If they somehow put the front forks through the create and I see them, they will deny it ever happened if not witnessed by their union stewart.

I've done plenty of shows at the LACC which is almost the worst followed by the NYCC and Washington DC CC. The worst, is the convention center in Chicago, where I've been thrown out for arguing with someone from the local CC shop because they said I could not plug my keyboard and mouse in, that fall under the electrician and I would be charged accordingly.

Now let's say my booth requires some type of tools to be assembled, let's say a socket and screwdriver. Oh I can't do that myself I need to hire someone from the show to do that, and if they bring over the wrong type of screw driver, they have to go all the way out to their car or truck to get the correct one, we hope.

This is what causes, shows to end. I don't care what the show management says in public, it's the behind the sense ransome these people hold the exhibits that causes a show to end.

Sorry for my little rant but I did shows for 8 years most larger comdex and N+I events in Vegas, Chicago, LA, DC and Orlando to name a few. I truly don't know how these events last so long because of all this behind the sense BS.

If anyone is interested I have more horror stories, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to trade shows and very large CCs.