While we’ve visited CES before, this is our first time exhibiting here, so things are a lot more frantic than usual. Our booth is in the Sands Convention Centre, just beside the Venetian, which is quite a decent place to be – lots of interesting technology companies in close proximity to us.
Although booked our own stand space back in August, our shortlisting for i-Stage means we also have a booth in the new i-Stage area. With only myself, Steve, Garry and Pat attending, this was stretching ourselves quite thinly – but just about doable.
Our A/V supplier sent us Plasma screens instead of the requested LCDs, and neglected to provide any speakers. Getting all this sorted out took some time. We also ran into trouble finding the particular Kinco’s that had printed our press release (who would have guessed there’d be so many outlets that close to the exhibition center). But after a few frantic hours, everything was ready.
And not a moment too soon – shortly after we finished, a TV crew (pictured right) turned up to shoot a CES segment for syndication on Morning TV across 24 local TV stations. I ended up giving them an impromptu demo of Amulet in action, and happily, everything went smoothly. The segment aired the following morning, and though I didn’t get to see it live, we had a chance to view it online later in the day. Pretty good exposure for Amulet, with an estimated TV audience of several million!
After finishing the TV spot, it was time for Garry and I to head back to the main South Hall to record an interview with Sky Radio (the station you hear on your headphones when flying business class within the US). Very relaxed and informal, the full interview was about 20 minutes but I expect it will be edited down to something much shorter.
So much for setup day – the real show starts tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’re off to hear Steve Ballmer’s Keynote address …
