The 2021 virtual edition of CES will live long in the memory—but why? Sadly, a lot of it is for the wrong reasons.
Today, we take a look back at last week’s tech show and assess what went well (not much) and what went badly (a lot).
It’s Just Not Vegas…
Before we begin, let us offer some balance. CES is all about the bustling show floor, the networking, the behind-the-scenes coverage on social media, the one-on-one interviews with industry specialists, the free food and drink, and the glitzy Vegas nightlife.
A virtual CES was never going to be able to recreate that experience, and it was unreasonable to expect it to.
Fewer New Products Were on Show
CES is normally the time when tech companies—both big and small—roll out their latest products for the coming year.
At the 2021 event, there was a clear reduction in the number of new products compared to what we’d typically expect to see.
Sure, the biggest names were all over the headlines; HP’s refreshed laptops, Razer’s gaming chairs, and Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 smartphone got people talking around the world.
But at the other end of the scale, small- and mid-sized companies often seemed content to use CES as a platform to push their older 2020 gadgets for a second time. This phenomenon isn’t new, but it was definitely more prevalent this year.
In hindsight, perhaps this was a smart move. The virtual nature of the event made it much harder for those types of companies to cut through—a problem only furthered by the grossly ineffective CES platform.
The CTA’s Planning Was Poor
The organizers of CES, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), spent most of 2020 hoping that they would be able to run an in-person show. We lost count of the number of times in 2020 that someone from the CTA sent us a survey asking if we’d be willing to go to a physical event.
Once the decision was made to “go virtual” in the fall, there was very little time for either the CTA or the many exhibitors and vendors to get themselves organized.
The result was a lot of virtual booths with little more than a YouTube video and a one-page press release, and a portal UI that was woefully lacking in tools, information, and ease-of-use.
Media Coverage Suffered
If you’re a tech news geek who religiously follows the latest goings-on at CES every January, it would have been hard not to notice a massive dropoff in the amount of CES coverage in 2021.
Three things contributed to the decline. Firstly, the virtual nature of the event meant fewer journalists covered the event overall.
Secondly, there was no hands-on testing. As a tech reporter, the ability to get hands-on experience with a device or app during CES is essential. It’s how we can provide more value to readers, as well as independently verify manufacturers’ oft-grandiose claims about features and quality. Of course, it also meant that we couldn’t bring you the usual array of videos, photos, and social media coverage that you’d expect to see from such events.
Lastly, the absence of a physical show floor meant it was difficult to stumble across the hidden gems that light up CES every year. Again, it was a problem only compounded by the inadequate CES platform.
The CES Platform Was Terrible
Underpinning so many of the shortcomings of CES 2021 was the online platform.
When we attended the virtual IFA event in September 2020, the platform was also poor. But IFA is much smaller and had much less time to prepare. CES had no excuse. The biggest and brightest minds in tech were all on-hand to help, and yet it was ridden with usability issues.
For example, when scanning through the exhibitor directory, there was no information beyond a company logo. You couldn’t tell what field a company was in, what products it was showcasing, which company reps were available to speak to, or anything else useful. You had to click into each booth individually to learn anything. When there are 2,000 vendors on show, that process gets old really quickly.
Similarly, the filters and search functions were poorly planned. The exhibitor directory filters, for instance, used the Boolean logic of OR rather than AND, meaning it was completely impossible to refine lists of exhibitors in any meaningful way.
Even the tech itself seemed to struggle under the weight of users—load times were often long and video presentations were jittery. Both problems were easily avoidable with more resources.
In the days since the event, more and more vendors, exhibitors, and media companies have voiced their disappointment. Indeed, dozens of smaller vendors have said they counted their total number of visitors over the three-day event in the tens; normally it would be in the thousands.
Did Any Positives Come Out of CES 2021?
Let’s finish on a couple of positive notes.
First, a shoutout to people who work in the tech PR industry. For PR people, reaching out to media outlets can be a thankless task at the best of times. At a virtual event, in which so much is forced to be funneled through email and LinkedIn inboxes, the job is a whole lot harder. But all the PR people we dealt with were quick to respond and often provided more useful information than the CES booths themselves.
And credit to the teams behind Pepcom, Showstoppers, and Techfluence, the three main media-only fringe events. Although their portal interfaces all looked a little dated, the exhibitors seemed much more engaged than at CES-proper, leading to a more valuable experience.
Will CES Be a Physical Event Again in 2022?
Well folks, that’s a wrap on #CES2021. Here’s to the better days ahead pic.twitter.com/TFkm56CdE7
— CES 2021 (@CES) January 14, 2021
We don’t have a crystal ball, but the CTA has confirmed it is planning to return to Vegas and hold an in-person event in 2022. The official date is January 5 to January 8.
If the global COVID vaccine rollout proceeds as we all hope, there’s a good chance that 2021 will end up being the only virtual CES we have to deal with. Perhaps it’s best if we collectively sweep it under the carpet and forget about it.
Be sure to let us know on Twitter what you thought about virtual CES, along with our coverage of it.