TRADESHOW HISTORY
The Collapse of COMDEX BY BOB MCGLINCY
Do you know the name COMDEX? Have you heard of the show? The Computer Dealers’ Exhibition (COMDEX) delivered the future to millions of people. As a brand, it became the largest tradeshow in the world, with 185 separate tech events between 1979 and 2006. The shows appeared in 24 countries on six continents, and in eight different U.S. cities. As an individual show, it was the largest in North America and second in size worldwide only to the German computer expo, Centrum fur Buroautomation, Informationstechnologie und Telekommunication (CeBIT). Fall COMDEX dominated Las Vegas for nearly two decades with an invading horde of geeks, buyers, distributors, manufacturers, workers, press, and tire-kickers. How large was one Las Vegas show? Imagine an event with 24 million pounds of freight, a million square feet of carpet, and 250 miles of electrical cable—all needing to be handled and installed. Think about the origin and logistics of coordinating thousands of trailers full of freight. Add to that mix 225,000 attendees, including more members of the press than worked the Super Bowl. During Fall COMDEX show days, it was challenging to 76 Jan/Feb/Mar 2026 Exhibit City News
move around the town, and at times nearly impossible to find an unoccupied cab, pay phone, or a table in a restaurant. At its peak in 1998, the show attracted 2,337 exhibitors, covered 1,475,000 net square feet of exhibit space, and displayed more than 10,000 products. Attendees arrived from 145 different countries, and almost 40 percent of the exhibitors were from overseas. The show filled the convention center to the max, and spilled people and exhibits into other venues, hotels, and parking lots. COMDEX strained airport and hotel capacity. It tested the town with crowd control and traffic congestion. What was the show like? Long lines of people waited for cabs and shuttle buses. Sometimes patiently, sometimes not so patiently. They waited in traffic, light after traffic light, block after block. They waited herded together in the lobby of the convention center—tens of thousands of bodies pressed one against the other, anxiously waiting for the doors to open. And once allowed inside, what would they see and experience? Products, people, and hype. Bells and whistles. Banners and signs. Booths and exhibits. Islands and in-lines. Keynotes and seminars. Dazzling displays of stunning brand
architecture. Towering double-deckers with million-dollar audio-visual presentations. More products. More people. Plus, jugglers, magicians, mimes, porn stars, contests, games, and giveaways—software, hardware, tickets, even cars were offered as gifts. Titans wined and dined. Businesses entertained at luncheons, post-show receptions and nightly parties. Lots of parties all over town and all hours of the night. But it wasn’t the parties that drove the growth. It was the business, the potential sales, and the networking. New, new, and new was the mantra on the show floor. Computer companies, storage companies, software and hardware giants, startups and others filled the halls. Exhibiting companies, some known, some unknown at the time, populated the show floor; they includ-
ed: 3Com, Acer, AMD, Apple, AT&T, Autodesk, Borland, Brother, Byte, CAI, Canon, Casio, Cisco, Compaq, Digital, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, LaserPort, Lotus, Microsoft, NEC, Oracle, Packard Bell, Panasonic, Phillips, Qualcomm, Ricoh, Samsung, Sharp, Siemens, Sony, Sybase, Toshiba, Wang, WordPerfect, WorldCom, Xerox, and Ziff-Davis. These 40 companies represented a small fraction of the often 2,000-plus exhibitors showcasing stunning exhibits and revolutionary products. What was the show’s impact? Imagine having an invading army the size of Reno, Nevada suddenly appear overnight. That was COMDEX. Attendance surpassed 200,000 customers for five consecutive years, and that number was greater than the total population at the time of Reno. The show created