Once upon a time Computex was a fun show, a smaller, tighter exhibition where you could meet with your OEM suppliers…
OK…it was never fun.

But it was indeed almost a relief after the stress of the mega-events of CeBIT, of Comdex. Europeans at Computex congregated in the Hyatt bar and you could almost be sure to catch up to whoever was in Taipei for the show. This made the Asian trip doubly worthwhile: you could see your Taiwan vendors and catch some of your European customers at the same time.

How do you pronounce inconvenience? We pronounce it... “Nangang,” after the new exhibition hall at Computex. Oh, that’s right…it’s not exactly at Computex at TWTC: it’s 30-40 minutes away with a huge city with inexplicable traffic patterns in-between the two divided parts of the exhibition.
Buyers had to shuttle (either by bus or a combination of bus, taxi, underground) between a divided event with a busy Asian city in the middle.

We should now call it the Twin Shows of Computex.  For years the organizers have wanted to emulate the power of the bigger shows, they’ve wanted to join the “club.” Expanding the exhibitor base was a priority. It was important to the organizers to claim world status (and that wasn’t easy with the enormous USA market with big shows like Comdex & CES; nor with the huge German exhibitions like CeBIT and IFA).

There’s a message here that does not bode well for emulation: Comdex is no longer with us. Sure, there were many variables adding to its demise…but one of the key elements to failure was when Comdex rose to a level of inconvenience, of dysfunction, of a size where buyers simply did not want to attend.   The show had split into many locations across Vegas. You couldn’t easily catch a bus. You spent more time between meetings than in them. You couldn’t even get a meal without waiting in line. Buyers found it painful and looked for excuses not to come.

Comdex felt they had a “captive” audience and buyers “had to attend.” The buyers felt otherwise.
Comdex thought it was the King and attendees were its royal Subjects. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not: in the end, the customer is King and everything else is just the King’s fiefdom.

Splitting the exhibition makes it harder work for the buyers who will thank you by visiting less often.