CES: an unaffiliated guide to not pissing away money and time

CES is upon us and I have once again managed to not be on the CES bus (this is both a figurative reference and for any of you who have gone before a very literal one). A friend recently reached out and asked if I could give some advice for a first-time attendee and their company. What follows has been formatted from a lengthy text thread but remains mostly unchanged. It comes from years of attending the show and making lots of mistakes along the way until I have achieved the penultimate goal of not even going. But if you do go, here’s my quick and dirty guide to making it worth it:

The floor is a nightmare

Nothing good will happen professionally on the show floor, but if it’s your first time you should go. I would personally ignore the guided tours like the plague, they’re useless. Give yourself and your team 3 hours to hit the two main halls and be nerds and enjoy it, it is the show to end all shows for tech junkies. This is your chance to be excited about some of the cool stuff our industry does. Most of it won’t come to exist as you see it in Vegas, but it’s fun to see what the world is capable of. 

That said, it serves literally zero business purpose. The people in the booths are all hired guns, they don’t know anything other than the script they were handed. Much like you want to be, most business folks are offsite in a suite or restaurant somewhere conducting business. 

Scan the sessions 

Do it in advance and divide and conquer accordingly. Pay literally no attention to the titles of the talks because they are almost always nonsensical. Pay lots of attention to the panelists and the moderator. If someone on the panel is from somewhere interesting, consider going. If the panel screams “I’m going to pitch you my company” - skip it like a rock on a perfectly still lake. CES is pretty decent at keeping these sessions from getting too pitchy, but it does happen. The BEST panels have competing companies on them which can often mean fireworks, so keep an eye out for those. 

On making Friends 

If you go to a session and someone on the panel was interesting and you feel the need to do that awful “hang around and give you my card” thing that’s fine; when you sign up to speak on a panel you sign up for that as a part of it. But work out the script in advance. Have a compelling reason to approach them in the first place and make sure they know you know CES is nuts and that time is precious. Tell them you won’t take more than 10 minutes and MEAN IT. And tell them you are trying to get out of CES as quickly as possible yourself and then leave them be. 

Pre-work is the work 

If you are booked for a pass and a hotel and have no meetings already lined up, I hope you like blackjack. The majority of your time should be spent either in your suite or in someone else’s taking advantage of the fact that all these special people are in the same city at the same time. That’s the truly good thing about CES is that so many feel compelled to go. 

A successful CES is predetermined long before you show up. If you are short on meetings I would break out the corporate card, get reservations at good places for dinner and leave a seat or two open. Don’t be afraid to cross-pollinate. Smart people like smart people. Making connections for your clients and partners is a huge benefit. So invite people to hang with people you know are impressive and/or interesting and the business will get done before or after. You’re not closing deals there but you can form a relationship. 

Parties

If you are lucky enough to get yourself on some lists for some of the big parties, have a blast. Especially if it’s your first go-round. But ask anyone who has gone, while they are a good time, nothing comes of them except deepening relationships and having good CES stories. 

Friday

If you are still in Vegas on Friday for anything other than catching a show or shooting machine guns in the desert, GET. OUT. Friday at CES is “Media’s Walking Dead”, except there’s no Norman Reedus and the ratings suck. 

You are lucky to go

Do everything you can while you are there to remember there is a HOST of people who DREAM about going to stuff like this. When it’s Thursday AM and you’re exhausted and miss your bed and have lost all your money, take a hot second to breathe in at least one or two cool things around you. As easy as it is to despise CES, it’s a pretty miraculous thing that occurs. 

A personal note

There are a TON of amazing locally owned businesses in Las Vegas. Don’t get me wrong, the big hotels are amazing and worth giving money to, but they are overrun and Uber/Lyft exist. So get off the strip and give some families some of that hard-earned corporate money. If you want reccos, slide in my DMs; I have them and will happily share.