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CES gadget show turnout falls more than 70% thanks to COVID

Associated Press

Tags: Business, Technology
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An attendee stands in an empty booth area near the TCL booth during the CES tech show Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz)
An attendee rests on a couch during the CES tech show Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz)
FILE - People view the Snapdragon Digital Chassis at the Snapdragon booth during the CES tech show Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas. The thousands of people who gathered in Las Vegas for this week's CES gadget show were a fraction of the usual crowd for the influential tech conference, the event's organizer said Friday, Jan. 7. The Consumer Technology Association said on the show's closing day that more than 40,000 people attended the multi-day event on the Las Vegas Strip. (AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz, File)
FILE - Kelly Taylor tries out a metaverse virtual shopping experience at the LOTTE Data Communication booth during the CES tech show Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022, in Las Vegas. The thousands of people who gathered in Las Vegas for this week's CES gadget show were a fraction of the usual crowd for the influential tech conference, the event's organizer said Friday, Jan. 7. The Consumer Technology Association said on the show's closing day that more than 40,000 people attended the multi-day event on the Las Vegas Strip. (AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz, File)
FILE - Attendees view projected images at an immersive entertainment theater exhibit at the Panasonic booth during the CES tech show, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022, in Las Vegas. The thousands of people who gathered in Las Vegas for this week's CES gadget show were a fraction of the usual crowd for the influential tech conference, the event's organizer said Friday, Jan. 7. The Consumer Technology Association said on the show's closing day that more than 40,000 people attended the multi-day event on the Las Vegas Strip. (AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz, File)
People take pictures in front of a sign during the CES tech show Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz)

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

An attendee stands in an empty booth area near the TCL booth during the CES tech show Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz)

LAS VEGAS – Attendance at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas fell more than 70% compared to its previous in-person event two years ago, its organizer said Saturday.

The Consumer Technology Association said that more than 45,000 people attended the multi-day event on the Las Vegas Strip that ended Friday. More than 170,000 were there for the 2020 convention. The latest numbers updated figures the CTA released Friday, which showed that 2022 attendance was greater than 40,000 people.

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The COVID-19 pandemic led the CTA to take 2021′s conference online, but the trade group decided eight months ago to bring a physical CES 2022 back to Vegas. That proved challenging amid a global spike in infections caused by the fast-moving omicron coronavirus variant that emerged late last year.

Conference attendees were required to wear masks on the exhibition floors that opened Wednesday and show proof of vaccination before they arrived. But the rise in COVID-19 cases led a number of big tech companies to pull out of the conference in the weeks before the event.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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