

CES Kicks Out Vendors Who Try to Display, Carry Out Business in Hotel Suites - profquail
http://www.dailytech.com/CES+Kicks+Out+Vendors+Who+Try+to+Display+Carry+Out+Business+in+Hotel+Suites/article17354.htm

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jrockway
Interesting. CEA has a contract with the hotels that says the hotel can't rent
space as meeting rooms. People renting the room from the hotel have a contract
(backed up by state law) that says they can. CEA's contract is bigger, so the
hotel is willing to violate the small contract and the state law because
presumably it is more cost-effective.

Violating the law is more profitable than abiding by it.

Too bad I can't just boycott all products advertised at CES.

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mwexler
This reminds me of the various cases against "guerrilla" advertisers during
the Olympics: they don't register as official sponsors, but use sports themes,
former Olympic champs, other evocative imagery to associate themselves with
the Olympics and benefiting from the hype without paying the licensing fees.
Like CES, the Olympics has been cracking down more and more.

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edd
A great similar example of this was during the Football (soccer) World Cup
2006 Dutch fans were asked to remove their trousers (pants) and sit and watch
the game in there pants (underwear) because the trousers (pants) had the logo
of a company who was in direct competition of one of the 'Official Sponsors'.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jun/19/marketingandpr.w...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jun/19/marketingandpr.worldcup2006)

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jacquesm
Which was absolutely and utterly ridiculous and which should have been
challenged up to the highest courts.

The rights of sponsors to sports events should not extend to the clothing of
the audience.

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blahedo
So do the kicked-out, fully-paid-up vendors have legal recourse against the
hotel at this point? Surely they must.

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jacquesm
That depends on the contract. If the contract stated that if they would do
this they would get kicked out then likely not.

They can still sue of course but it wouldn't help them much.

If all it is is the CES management colluding with the hotel management then
they've just killed CES.

They ought to be happy with people coming there either way. And the exorbitant
fees for exhibiting on the grounds are what drives this kind of tactics
anyway.

Lots of big consumer shows have this sort of thing happening around them,
there is nothing wrong with it, it's just the market at work.

Expect next years CES to be smaller than this years because of this.

In the past it would usually be one or two very specific vendors that would
draw me to an exhibition, and not always would the venue be on the grounds.
But after seeing what I came for I would then go to the main exhibition
anyway, just because I was already in the neighbourhood.

These were mostly in Hannover and London, but I don't think the general
principle changes much.

Some very interesting small companies can simply not afford the out-of-touch-
with-reality price per ft^2 that these exhibitions charge.

Want power to your booth? That'll be $1500. Oh, and another $500 for the
licensed electrician to plug that in to that socket.

edit: thinking about this some more, I can't even recall having gone to an
exhibition after 2000 or so, stuff is released all the time now and with the
internet as a vehicle to get the information out there the days of the giant
exhibition are probably numbered anyway.

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eli
Amusing, but ultimately this will make the conference less pleasant for
everyone. It's not like every company can afford to rent legit meeting space
(I doubt there's even enough to go around) and trying to have meetings on the
show floor is awful.

