CES Vendors Kicked Out of Hotels For Showcasing Wares in Room 285
An anonymous reader writes to mention that a number of companies attempting to stretch their dollars by showing their new gear in hotel suites around Vegas during CES were kicked out of the rooms they paid for by CES organizers and hotel staff. According to sources as many as 30 small electronics companies may have been kicked out of The Venetian and The Palazzo on Thursday. One anonymous vendor claims they were coerced into paying $10,000 to the CEA lest they be kicked out of their (paid for) suite and barred from exhibiting or meeting with clients. 'States our source, "I asked the hotel staff if there were any limitations for using the suite. They said the only limitations were how many people were at our parties. They didn't say there were any limitations on displaying product. We set up our product on the first day. Then on Wednesday a cleaning person came in and reported what they saw to management. From there we got kicked out on Thursday."'
Re:That is positively asinine. (Score:5, Informative)
"I've never been to any trade show yet where this wasn't the case."
Even companies that have floor space MOST have some sort of suite where the big guys can come in and play with the gear without having to deal with the riffraff.
I'm headed out to a show in a few days in LA that I've been invited to a few...last time I was out there, I thought I was meeting up with the pres of an overseas company to see his products, and it ended up being a suite full of scantily dressed hookers and coke. Only speaking broken Japanese, I apologized to the gentleman as I figured I had the wrong room.
I quickly got the hell out of there...my buddy, however, decided to stick around for a while...turns out it WAS the guy were were supposed to meet!
They had one of the biggest sq ft on the floor, bit there was OBVIOUSLY a reason he needed to have his suite private...kinda wish I had stuck around!
Re:Pretty disgusting (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That is positively asinine. (Score:5, Informative)
Having stayed at the Venetian the week before CES two years ago, I can say without a doubt that it is usually standard practice to hold meetings in hotel rooms. I had been upgraded to a suite there and the night before I was to check out, hotel staff were removing beds (mattresses and frames) from every room in the same wing and floor I was staying on. I can only imagine that they were going to take the bed from the room I was in as soon as I checked out.
When I used to attend CES in the late 90's through 2002, I was well aware of business meetings as well as parties being held in hotel rooms at most of the nearby hotels. I never received an invite, but the Kentia hall vendors would often have a sign saying, "Come see our presentation in room blah of the [Hilton, Venetian, Sands, etc...]."
I'm thinking this is just CES management shaking down unregistered vendors that are trying to piggyback on the show without paying a share. I could be wrong though.
Re:That is positively asinine. (Score:4, Informative)
Seconded. I've been to CES a number of times with a wireless startup, and we've always been in suites in the hotels. There's no way they don't know exactly what's going on when they see us roll up in a loaded minivan with boxes that say "Dell" all over them. We chose suites for two reasons: the obvious expense aspect, and there is no way we'd try to demo on the show floor...the RF environment is just too congested. It's also a much nicer way to engage a customer, and gives them a break from the insanity of the floor. I can't imagine that the use of suites will ever go away...CEA will just find a way to drive the cost up.
And it will continue.... (Score:1, Informative)
with smaller companies will find anyway to save revenue if possible..
For example, the cost of the mandated "union" to plug in the 300 watts of trade show display booth lights into an electrical outlet is $150. An an "always on" Internet at the shows are typically $500+ when if you can get the same connectivity in your room for $10.
We run our demo at the show(s) over the internet by tethering our mobile phone internet connection- instead of paying the overinflated price for broadband at conventions. By attending as little as two tradeshows a year more than justifies the annual costs of the data plans from any major mobile phone network.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And this is news why? (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty obvious to me that if you're paying a premium for showing your product at that show, you don't want 2 bit operations setting up in the hotel rooms above you trying to swindle your viewers up to their private quarters. You're there for those people to see your flashy setup. That's why you pay, isn't it? Management and CES could very well have been protecting the interests and quality of the show. Also, I don't think if CES moved it would hurt Vegas all that much.
That's a pretty crazy exaggeration/analogy. You are practically comparing the 100's of small startup tech companies who rent suites at CES to hookers or swindlers. Nice.
Further, your description is not very accurate. The Las Vegas Convention Center is not a hotel, so there is no "swindling viewers up to their private quarters" - in fact, the hotels that rent the largest number of suites to companies (Venetian, Bellagio, Wynn, etc) are no where near the convention center. Many of these companies have no presence at the convention, so how are they "swindling away" anyone? Many of the meetings/demos are private, have no interest/intention of showing their products in public yet, and have been set up between various parties well in advance, so it's not even taking away revenue from the CEA.
In fact, much of the reason the companies schedule these meetings at CES not to "steal" from the CEA, but simply because that's when all of the executives, press, etc who they want to meet with are in one place at the same time. They save a lot of money and time not having to inefficiently fly everyone around the world for weeks holding one painful meeting at a time. I suppose that is now stealing from the airlines, though...
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
The idea that... (Score:3, Informative)
...CES 'kicked people out of hotel suites' is patently delusional. The hotels kicked them out. Random people cannot kick people out of hotel rooms.
Whether or not the hotels can do that is a separate point. You cannot just randomly kick people out of their rooms for no reason.
While a lot of you are talking about 'changing agreements' after the fact, I'm not entirely certain hotels could actually dictate the purposes for which you could use a hotel room even with a contract in advance.
Everyone assuming this is a simple matter of contract law needs to look up 'innkeeper statutes'...people who operate hotels cannot just randomly make whatever rules and regulations they want about residents, even in advance.
If I walk up to a hotdog vender, and want to buy a hotdog and have the money, and he doesn't like my hat, he doesn't have to sell me a hotdog. Normal businesses can refuse service to anyone except for specific reasons.
If I want up to a hotel, however, and have the money, they do have to give me a room if they have one, unless they think I'm going to use it for some unlawful purposes. Hotels are not like other businesses, they're not even like apartments...they are considered public accommodations, and the reasons you can refuse service are only the reasons specifically outlined in law.(1)
There are a lot of other regulations about what 'innkeepers' can, and cannot, do. For example, in most places, they can't actually disallow non-renters from visiting a renter who authorizes them. Your parties have to obey fire code, and cannot be disruptive, but that's it.
I know a lot of people assume 'Companies can do anything as long as they say it advance', but 'innkeeping' is actually heavily regulated.
Casinos in Vegas have, for exactly this reason, a clearly defined area that is 'the hotel' (Where innkeeping laws hold sway), vs. 'the casino' (Where gambling laws hold), vs. the rentable floor areas (Which are just like renting a warehouse or something) vs. the rest of the building (Which falls more under the 'mall' part of the law, being open to the public.)
Oh, and some people may be unaware...The Venetian and The Palazzo are the same building. They are two hotels next to each other, with one casino in the middle of them, and one (huge multi-story) exhibit area behind the casino, along with a bunch of other stuff back there like the Blue Man Group theater. (I stayed at the Venetian once.)
1) Someone's about to say 'Hey, didn't hotels used bar unmarried couples from staying, and to have 'house detectives who attempted to make sure that people weren't using hotels for affairs?'. Yes, and having sex outside of marriage used to be illegal, making that being 'using a hotel room for unlawful purposes', until the Supreme Court struck those laws down, and hotels had to stop.
Re:And this is news why? (Score:5, Informative)
Crikey, hotel suites exist for two purposes. 1, Folk with money who want space, and 2, business people who need space to meet clients without inviting them into their bedroom.
Journalists book suites to conduct interviews, senior business people use them to conduct large transactions. I'd guess in most hotels, suites are used more for business than they are for ordinary guests.
Re:And this is news why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Announcing competitive event for 2011 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And this is news why? (Score:4, Informative)
>Most states have no specific laws on the books whatsoever in regard to race or >anything else. In general, a hotel management can deny service to anyone for >pretty much any reason
States don't need one because there is a Federal law:
Its called Federal Public Accommodation Law:
http://public.findlaw.com/civil-rights/civil-rights-enforcement/public-accommodation-discrimination-enforcement.html [findlaw.com]
Re:Contracts anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
I just got back from CES last night, and this happened to a vendor I had an appointment with.
We were on the 30th floor of the Venetian. The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association, the entity that puts on CES) arranges to take complete floors for things that make noise - they had the 29th, the 30th and the 32nd along with parts of the 34th and 35th and probably others. We make noise, we're selling high end home/corporate theater sound systems and the demos exceed 100 dB at certain points, so combined with the traffic there's no way any regular guest would be happy there. Each room gets a sign to tell other attendees who is there, the doors are generally left wide open and music (and bodies) permeate the hallways all day.
As a point of reference the room cost, paid to the CEA directly, is about $20K for about a week (including setup before the show and teardown afterward), and there are lots of other costs as well. The cost is a serious barrier to entry for smaller firms.
On Friday we were visited by a vendor offering a product that we use and need. I wanted to learn more, and they told me they were just upstairs on the 31st floor, gave me a card with their suite number, and we arranged to get together Saturday morning after a meeting I already had scheduled. I sent them a text message Saturday morning and didn't hear back until their salesman was back in our suite with an explanation.
It turns out that they had managed to book a room on that floor just above other CES exhibitors, had 16 cases of equipment brought up by the hotel staff, and had been bringing people in since the show opened. As they were in the hotel along with the other exhibitors I thought nothing of it and assumed they were just another exhibitor - but it turns our they had not gone through the CEA. Hotel security - and the local Sheriff according to them - took their stuff and them from the room & put them on the curb at 10:00 PM Friday night.
Now in this case they did confess to me that they pulled out the agreement that they signed when they checked in, and that agreement said they would not be making loud noises or conducting business - and they felt that since their products are still in the development stage they didn't count. They were told they had been discovered because they were doing music demonstrations in the room during show hours and people could hear it through the (closed) doors. Since they were not on a floor the CEA had taken 100% of for sound demos it was disturbing other guests and that's how they were discovered.
They ended up in another hotel, where I met them Sunday. I'll be curious to see if they were offered the chance to pay $10K to stay, which is about what a room the size of the one they had would have cost if they booked it properly although they would not have been in the program or on the signs.
Re:Contracts anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
I assume the room contracts were between the small companies and the hotel.
I also thought so, being not a L. However someone above already corrected both of us. The hotel industry is regulated by the innkeeper statute. I remember seeing it posted in hotel rooms. This means that state laws control the hotel industry, and individual hotels have little say in what is and what isn't allowed. As the comment above points out, a guest is free to do pretty much anything that is legal.
It's possible that CEA had a contract with the hotel
As you say, it's irrelevant.
unless the hotel rewrote the contracts the small companies signed
Per the innkeeper statute [state.nv.us], the hotel has no such right - see NRS 651.080 in the link above.