'More intimate' E3 being planned
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UPDATE: ESA moves to meeting-centered format
By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 8/4/2006
AUG. 4 | Home entertainment retailers can mark next July off the calendar for anything but business.
The Entertainment Software Assn. said last week that it will drastically scale back its 2007 E3 convention from a large trade floor event attracting tens of thousands in the gaming business to a smaller, intimate meeting-room-centered show held in July rather than May.
The July timing could pit it against the Entertainment Merchants Assn.’s own home entertainment convention, which draws on many of the same retailers that would likely attend the resized E3.
ESA envisions the 2007 show as one focused on small meetings with media, retail, development and other gaming sectors. Gone will be the extravagant tradeshow environment of past years, in which publishers and console makers showed off their latest titles with huge flashy displays filled with game demos, blaring music and booth babes.
EMA VP of public affairs Sean Bersell said it’s too early to speculate on any impact the ESA show might have on EMA’s home entertainment convention. The EMA convention is a business-centric event that has been held at a hotel in Las Vegas for the past five years with meeting rooms in place of a show floor.
“From what I understand from ESA, they are in the process currently of reconfiguring their show. They’re looking at various options, including various dates and the like,” Bersell said. “It’s incredibly premature to speculate on the impact, if any, on our show given where ESA is with their show.”
The July date could alternately provide an interesting opportunity for EMA, which is in development on a videogame convention or event of its own since its formation after the videogame group Interactive Entertainment Merchants Assn. and the Video Software Dealers Assn. merged in May. In years past, the Crest Group, which used to manage IEMA, put together a July summit that joined key retailers with game publishers.
EMA’s Bersell said the group has not held discussions with ESA about a joint convention but wouldn’t rule it out.
“We are always looking at ways to improve our show and make it even better for exhibitors and attendees,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any option we would just foreclose and say we won’t even consider that.”
ESA didn’t return calls for comment about its convention changes or the possibility of working with EMA.
In its formal announcement, ESA characterized the change in format as a response to a changing industry.
“The world of interactive entertainment has changed since E3 Expo was created 12 years ago,” ESA president Douglas Lowenstein said. “Over the years, it has become clear that we need a more intimate program, including higher quality, more personal dialog with the worldwide media, developers, retailers and other key industry audiences.”
Lowenstein said other videogame events, such as the Games Convention in Leipzig and the Tokyo Game Show, have taken away the industry’s need for a “mega-show.”
Word on the change, which surprised many, began leaking out this week after a vote by ESA’s board, which is made up of publishers Electronic Arts and THQ Inc. and console makers Sony Computer Entertainment and Nintendo Co.
Rumors began circulating on gaming Web sites over the weekend, with reports that major show backers wanted to cut their expenses for the show.
“There’s a tremendous cost to putting on E3. We can understand where they’re coming from,” the president of a major independent game publisher told VB. “I think it’s good for the industry to step back and see if the money is being well spent.”
There is no public breakdown of how much ESA members spend each year on E3. However, last May, European videogame trade magazine MCV, queried exhibitors and event firms about how much E3 cost them. MCV estimated that publishers, developers, technology firms and service companies spent $100 million on the convention. Of that total, $50 million was eaten up by direct exhibition expenses and the rest in staff expenses.
The trade publication also estimated that industry attendees from outside the U.S. spent $22 million in traveling and per diem expenses to attend E3.
This year, more than 5,800 flat-screen monitors were needed to display games at E3.
A major loser in the change will be the city of Los Angeles. E3 is one of the city’s biggest conventions. The 2006 show attracted more than 60,000 attendees and injected an estimated $20 million into the local economy.
The show’s cutback comes as the city is adding entertainment/sports complex LA Live near its convention center and two new downtown hotels to better accommodate convention visitors.
The ESA will almost certainly pay for the change, given that it had a contract with the L.A. Convention and Visitors Bureau to hold the show at the L.A. Convention Center through 2012. ESA’s Lowenstein met with the head of the LA Inc. The Convention and Visitors Bureau Monday after making its E3 announcement.
“The impact of this decision will not be fully understood for some months,” said Mark Liberman, president and CEO of LA Inc. “The absence of E3’s 36,000 room nights in May of next year and the ensuing years through 2012 will clearly be a net loss notwithstanding what other smaller hotel specific events ESA may schedule throughout L.A.”
ESA said it expects to continue to hold the show in Los Angeles in July in several hotels, which could minimize the city’s loss some.
ESA plans to give additional details about the revamped expo in the coming months.
