Comdex event is cancelled for 2004

MediaLive International, the company which owns the Comdex technology trade show, has announced that this year's event has been cancelled after several years of decline in audience and exhibitor figures.

The show, which is one of the oldest computing trade shows and was one of the largest during the 1990s, has largely been supplanted by the CES event in Las Vegas and the CeBit event in Hanover, Germany.

Although it was a general trade show for IT and computing, Comdex traditionally attracted interest from major players in the videogame hardware industry, many of whom still exhibit at CES and CeBit.

Last year, however, attendance figures at the show dropped to 40,000 as major exhibitors chose not to attend, and the cancellation of the 2004 event comes in the wake of the bankruptcy of former show owner Key3Media.

"We feel that while we could run Comdex profitably this year, it really wouldn't serve the interests of the broader IT industry," according to MediaLive VP Eric Faurot. The company currently intends to resurrect the show in 2005, although this will depend largely on managing to re-attract interest from major players such as Dell and Microsoft.