15 Ways CES Organizers Are Luring People To This Year's Convention

[gonzo]

As you know, we'll be at next week's 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for the third straight grueling year. But we're not sure who else will be. The organizers of the show are expecting an 8% drop in attendance. And we say "good riddance." Less than a month before the event, Woot booked a block of rooms at one of the newest, fanciest Vegas hotels - and one close to the Convention Center - for about what we were going to pay at the older, crappier, farther-away hotel we stayed at last year. Um, gosh, that's really too bad, guys. If this be terminal decline, at least there'll be lots of leg room. And an indoor pool.

So if we were running CES, the first thing we'd do (aside from ending the whole enterprise and begging forgiveness from the gods of good taste) is enact the fifteen-point door-juicing program elucidated below:

1. Riding those mechanical bulls in the Casio booth: Amanda Congdon, Maria Bartiromo, and Robert Scoble.
2. For the duration of CES, deuces are wild at all Strip casinos.
3. Nightly hotel rate includes in-room performance by Cirque du Soleil.
4. Steve Ballmer to deliver keynote address while tripping on angel dust.
5. Imported coolies available to carry CES attendees around convention center.
6. Every third visitor will be made an honorary member of the Gambino family.
7. “PHOTOS PROHIBITED” policy changed to “PHOTOS MANDATORY”.
8. After last year’s successful Brian Wilson performance, this year CES will feature two shows by the mummified corpse of John Lennon.
9. Convention shuttles will now pick you up at your house.
10. Panasonic will sponsor all-acoustic, drug-free rave Friday night from 8-10 P.M.
11. Pants-optional policy for exhibitors with waist-high booth counters.
12. Show your CES badge to a hooker and get a free (BLEEP) with every purchase of a (BLEEP).
13. George Lucas dunking booth.
14. Convention Center food stalls might actually accept credit cards this year.
15. Whatever you can carry out the door on Sunday is yours.

If you're not going to CES, what would entice you to make the trek? And if you are going, can you get us into any parties or receptions or VIP rooms or meet-and-greets? Somebody might as well eat all those undisturbed hummus platters.