CES or Bust!

Are you ready for the nonstop marathon known as CES? The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Vegas Jan 10 with an impressive list of keynotes (YouTube’s Robert Kynci, Microsoft’s Steve Balmer, Verizon’s Lowell McAdam and Intel’s Paul Otellini to name a few). Anyone who has ever been to the mega trade show can attest to how hard it is to get around. Try doing it on live TV. That’s the task for G4’s “Attack of the Show.”

 

“Thankfully we have amazing tech producers. And we have great relationships with all the manufacturers, so sometimes we will get an early lead on what products really need to be seen,” says Attack’s co-host Kevin Pereira.

 

His strategy is to head straight to the Digital Experience, a media event held annually on the eve of the show. 

 

“You can really get a shotgun blast of the technology... and then we hit the floor early and often. We are running around, taking a look at things, seeing what pops, seeing what leaps out at us, having meetings, and trying to squirrel away as many products and vendors as we can to bring on air for live coverage,” Pereira says. “It really is an exciting challenge to figure it out how to take thousands of square feet of product and distil it down to the 15 or 25 that you need to know.”

 

Helping cable navigate the waters will be CTAM, which has held a guided tour of CES for top cable execs for 11 years now. Here’s how one CTAM rep summed up the tour: “2 days, 90+ of us, 5.5 miles/day, in a desert.” Fun, fun, fun! A few of the dedicated, including Cox’s Joe Rooney and Cable One’s Jerry McKenna, have made all 11 tours. We’re sure they’re pros now, but in case you lose your way, CEA has a map. Viva Las Vegas!