On the way to technology overload at CES 2013

If you’re a fan of anything electronic, next week is going to be a very busy week for news as the wall-to-wall technology mayhem that is known to the world as the 2013 International CES–or as most people call it, CES–takes over Las Vegas for four days of gadget overload.

The rock and roll starts tomorrow, Sunday, as media descend on CES Unveiled, the pre-show for the real conference and trade show, which takes over the Las Vegas Convention Center from Tuesday, January 8 to Friday, January 11. Otherwise, press have Monday to dive into press conferences and get an early taste of the show floor before it opens to attendees on Tuesday.

The big deal for me is that this will be my first year at the event, and based on the email alone, I already feel overwhelmed. The event is just massive, on a scale that is almost hard to believe.

According to one website, CES 2013 will have around 1.87 million square feet of exhibit space, 3,000 exhibitors, and around 156,000 people will be showing up to take it all in.

Right now, I have plans to take in a lot of press conferences and booth tours with the likes of LG, Panasonic, Netgear, Samsung, Ford, I’m Watch, Parrot, Bang & Olufsen, Brookstone, Marshall, and a bunch of others. Plus, I’ll be at the Tomb Raider event too, and walking the floor to drop in on other companies I just didn’t have time to schedule specifically (Canon, Ericsson, Fuji Film, Go Pro, Lunatik, Pebble, Spider, and Think Tank, to name a small fraction of them).

The big problem, aside from sore feet–I’m betting–will be the whole signal to noise ratio that you can even glimpse in the emails and press releases that bombard media ahead of the conference, and in the news. I’ve received a few hundred emails since December about CES exhibitors, and a lot of the email is essentially meaningless to me, either because it’s not related to what I cover, or, more often, because it’s essentially junk (I’m looking at you, iPhone/iPad case companies).

For all the junk though, there are some brilliant people and events at CES, and a lot of companies that are on the cusp of becoming (hopeful) success stories, thanks to Kickstarter funding.

Stay tuned for updates and news from CES, along with pictures and video, and keep an eye on my Twitter and Instagram feeds for up-to-the-minute details. You can follow the coverage here on The GATE at www.thegate.ca/tag/ces.