Imagine one of the largest exhibition venues in the world, crammed full of revolutionary technological inventions and advancements. Brand-new cars sit on the show floor and capture your eye with their exotic looks. Nearby, you hear the soft and subtle drone of the world’s most efficient 3D printer. Over to your right, you notice an exhibitor demonstrating an immersive Augmented Reality (AR) video game set in the Metaverse. Where else could you be but the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world’s most prestigious business-to-business (B2B) technology trade event?
The CES is no ordinary tech show; it’s the main beacon that market leaders and decision-makers flock to when navigating the complex tech industry while harnessing the power of technology to advance their goals. It is a nexus where the world’s most innovative companies gather and showcase various groundbreaking technological innovations that can transform our daily lives. So whether you are a CEO, marketing manager, event planner, or tech reporter, the CES offers relevant and unparalleled exposure to the tech industry’s latest advances.
Dates and venue
With only one exception during the COVID-19 pandemic, the CES has held its modern annual show in Nevada at the Las Vegas Convention Center since 1998. It is a multi-day event typically held at the beginning of the year, and the 2025 edition will take place from 7 January to 11 January. As a B2B-focused event, the CES is not open to the general public, and all attendees need to register online beforehand. Following the registration process, attendees will receive an entry badge to access the show.
Located in Clark County Nevada, the famous Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) is a perfect choice to host the CES trade show. With over 2,000,000 square feet of exhibition space, the LVCC has the second-largest convention center in the United States by gross exhibition hall square footage. It has a rich and colorful history too, having hosted famous events like a concert by The Beatles in 1964, a boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Floyd Patterson in 1965, and the 1994 FIFA World Cup draw.
Attendees can access the exhibition easily via the LVCC’s Loop, an innovative underground shuttle transit system inaugurated 2021. It uses the Tesla Model 3 electric vehicle as shuttles; the whole line consists of five stations and spans just under two miles altogether. In the future, these shuttles will likely become fully autonomous, self-driving units.
Event outline and history
To state that the CES originated from humble beginnings would be an understatement. The first ever CES was held in June 1967 in New York as a spinoff of the Chicago Music Show. Less than 18,000 people attended this embryonic event, which laid the groundwork for future expansion. With interest increasing, the CES became a biannual event from 1978 until 1994. During that time, shows were held biannually with a summer event in Chicago and a winter event in Las Vegas. With fewer and fewer people attending, the summer event ended in 1994 as the focus shifted entirely to the show at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Today, the CES is the Consumer Technology Association’s annual tech trade show and is the most influential tech event in the United States. Visitor counts frequently top the 100,000 figure, with the largest-ever attendance recorded in 2019 with 182,000 attendees. Since all attendees must register beforehand, these figures are very remarkable for the Las Vegas-based show.
In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Consumer Technology Association to run the CES as a digital-only event, which impacted usual attendance figures. At CES 2024, similar attendance levels compared to pre-pandemic annual CES trade shows were reported, and the organizers hope for even higher anticipated numbers in CES’s future.
What to expect from the Consumer Electronics Show exhibition
Other than the CES, few exhibitions offer so much innovation crammed inside a single space. To get an idea of what awaits you at CES 2025, the previous year’s exhibition serves as an excellent blueprint.
In 2024, the CES again set the standard for international technology exhibitions. Over 135,000 people registered and attended the event at the Las Vegas Convention Center, along with 302 influential companies on the 2023 Fortune 500 list! On stage, visitors enjoyed presentations from distinguished speakers like Robert Downey Jr., will.i.am, and Mark Cuban. Meanwhile, thousands of potential customers engaged with an exceptional variety of products from many exhibiting companies in the tech industry, including artificial intelligence, augmented reality, vehicle technology, robotics, cloud computing, and gaming. As if all of this weren’t so impressive on its own, the CES 2024 event impressed even further with its overall theme of sustainability in technological innovation.
At CES 2025, there will be a continued emphasis on sustainable practices within the tech industry fostered through a dedicated Sustainability and ESG zone. Here, CES visitors will learn how sustainable innovations are changing the technology we use daily with a cleaner planet in mind.
CES 2025 is also expected to feature the Consumer Technology Association’s partnership with the Human Security for All (HS4A) campaign. The HS4A descends from the United Nations’ human security concept of 1994, which identifies several security pillars tied to an individual’s well-being in life. At CES 2024, technology and tech industry leaders were recognized for the first time as part of the process to address mankind’s most serious threats. Around the same time, the Consumer Technology Association also announced technology as a new human security pillar of the HS4A strategy.
More specific information on what CES 2025 will have to offer will be communicated two days before the event during the CES Unveiled Las Vegas media previews. As the exhibition’s official press conference program, CES Unveiled Las Vegas is an exceptional opportunity to access the extensive pre-registered CES media list. If you plan on documenting some of the latest consumer product innovations for the first time, then it is absolutely the place to be.
Products
With its function as a nexus for technology across many fields, the 2025 CES show floor will feature swaths of cutting-edge products from several major companies. Most of the products on display are designed with life in our post-COVID world in mind, with exhibitors at the 2024 event including familiar brand names like Google, Sony, Samsung Electronics, Bosch, Canon, Walmart, Apple, and L’Oréal.
That same year, Walmart made headlines with the exhibition of its new Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning-based inventory systems. Meanwhile, Beyond Meat received acclaim in 2019 after winning the CES 2019 Top Tech Award for its new range of vegan meat alternatives. Then there was the 2001 show, where Microsoft unveiled its Xbox gaming console for the very first time. In short, it is difficult to truly comprehend the sheer importance of this event and the variety of groundbreaking innovations revealed by the exhibiting companies.
There will be a big spotlight on the automotive sector too, with car companies like Hyundai, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen having showcased the automotive industry’s recently developed technologies previously at CES 2024. Together, these brands demonstrated new vehicle technological innovations like haptic midair displays, Chat GPT AI infotainment integration, and teleoperated parking systems. There were also plenty of new and concept vehicle models to see for the first time, including Kia’s PBV urban utility electric vehicles, VinFast’s VF3 mini SUV, and Honda’s 0 Series concept electric saloon.
If all these trends are anything to go by, the 2025 edition of this remarkable exhibition of all things tech will have something everyone can enjoy.
Events
Like any modern major exhibition event, the CES does not rely on just the exciting exhibitions alone to captivate visitors. Attendees to any CES annual show can expect extra featured events that contribute to making the CES such an immersive experience for the world’s innovators. Attractive feature events present at the 2024 CES trade show in Las Vegas include the Annual International Reception, the Keynotes presentation series, and the Diversity and Inclusion talk sessions.
Keynotes
Once again, industry professionals and business leaders will take center stage at the 2025 CES exhibition for its famous Keynotes presentation series. With a focus on all things tech, this engaging event is a chance to stay ahead of new industry trends by listening to presentations from leading tech giants.
The 2025 Keynotes session will hope to build off of the previous year’s discussions in Las Vegas, which featured the likes of Siemens, Walmart, L’Oréal and more. Tech giants Hyundai were also present at the CES 2024 Keynotes with their shipbuilding subsidiary HD Hyundai, which gave a talk on providing solutions to sustainability challenges.
CES 2024 also included a few discussion presentations, where multiple participants from different company backgrounds raised awareness of the latest advances and challenges in the tech industry. One particularly captivating talk involved Intel Corporation CEO Pat Gelsinger, CNBC’s Kristina Partsinevelos, and Elevance Health’s CEO Gail Boudreaux; it focused on the role of software in making AI technology more accessible and the role of technology in improving healthcare.
Annual International Reception
As a feature event crafted with the CES’s foreign audience in mind, the Annual International Reception is held on the first night of the exhibition by the Consumer Technology Association to welcome all foreign attendees. In addition to the provision of refreshments, the reception is also a sensational networking opportunity.
To go the extra mile in welcoming foreign attendees, the CES has also set up the International Business Center (IBC) as an exclusive hub with resources and facilities for international CES attendees.
Located at the LVCC and the Venetian Expo, it comprises private meeting rooms, a lounge area with refreshments, preset laptops with internet access, and multilingual translator services.
Roughly 40% of CES 2024’s attendees were from outside the United States.
Both the feature event and the IBC resonate with the CES’ participation in the United States Department of Commerce’s Trade Event Partnership Program (TEPP), which assists pre-screened foreign buyer delegations in visiting trade shows in the United States.
Diversity and inclusion talk sessions
What would the technology industry be if not for the diverse range of people who help drive it forward? This is the main theme of the Diversity and inclusion sessions, which give a platform to those innovators who haven’t had the opportunity to make their voices heard. Several discussion events usually happen here, with the 2014 edition of the CES having hosted previous discussions on female entrepreneurship, the role of the chief diversity officer in a company, and inclusive design principles that consider consumers with disabilities.
Final thoughts
For all things tech and beyond, the Consumer Electronics Show has got it covered. From relationship-building with industry professionals to stimulating presentations and endless innovative tech products, this annual show provides many unique opportunities like no other. All this and more shows why the Consumer Technology Association bills the CES as “the most powerful tech event”.
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