Media Live, Comdex's current owner, announced Wednesday that the show would return in 2005 and an advisory board of vendors has been formed to help that happen.

"In the year since we assumed the responsibility of managing the technology industry's largest annual event, we have sought to reposition Comdex and rebuild the market's trust," said Robert Priest-Heck, president and chief executive officer of MediaLive. "While we could still run a profitable Comdex this year, it does not benefit the industry to do so without broader support of the leading technology companies. In order to give the advisory board the time and opportunity necessary to partake in the redesign of Comdex, we thought it best to postpone this year's show."

Comdex was launched in 1979 by Sheldon Adelson, who at the time was the owner of Needham, Mass.-based Interface Group. Adelson grew Comdex into a worldwide franchise with multiple venues before selling it in the mid-1990s to Softbank, which at the time also owned Ziff-Davis Publishing, for $867 million. After Softbank, Comdex had a string of owners, and the show has continued to shrink each year. The industry downturn of the past several years caused many former exhibitors to rethink their trade show spending, and many have instead focused on smaller, more highly targeted events.

By: DocMemory
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