Organizers Cancel Comdex '04
By Doug Olenick -- TWICE, 7/12/2004
SAN FRANCISCO— Comdex Las Vegas 2004 has been cancelled by trade show organizer MediaLive International.
The show, once one of the largest trade events in the world, was scheduled to be held November 14 – 17. MediaLive called the cancellation a "postponement" and said that the event would be reorganized and relaunched in November 2005. In 2003, the show attracted about 40,000 attendees and 550 exhibitors, according to MediaLive.
This is a far cry from what took place during Comdex's heyday in the mid-1990s. Reportedly 200,000 people would swarm into Las Vegas and the Convention Center would dedicate all its floor space to the show.
The show, which was launched 1979, started to show some wear and tear with the bursting of the tech bubble. However, the Sept. 11 terror attacks two months prior to the 2001 show put the event into a downward spiral from which it could not recover. With attendees afraid to travel, the show drew barely 30,000 people, and vast portions of the Las Vegas Convention Center were almost empty.
The COMDEX staff said it would contact all confirmed sponsors, partners, exhibitors, speakers, vendors and attendees individually to inform them of the postponement..
