It’s hard to replicate the CES experience, where the whole point is interacting with the latest technology. Sometimes you do need to touch, feel and use technology to understand how it works – difficult to replace with a promotional video!
Due to Covid-19, some tech was not fully completed either so liberties were taken with sharing unbuilt products with CGI used to demo unfinished products.
Discoverability of new tech was also difficult. Yes, you could search within the online platform for ideas, but it wasn’t quite the same user experience as walking around exhibitor stands and spotting a new exhibitor with an unusual idea or the next “cool thing”.
The virtual event made some useful concessions to attendees too – on demand keynote speaker presentations (available for months post-event) and an online contacts/lead generation tool as well. Virtual networking anyone?
If you had specific areas of interest, you didn’t need to trawl miles of exhibitor stands to find the ones of interest, as you could use the online search function to find exhibitors or products of particular interest.