I Did Not “Credent” for CES! But It Got Fixed By Magic!

It is nearly CES time. The biggest consumer electronics show in the world. And this year it is to be ALL DIGITAL. I was sent the e-mails as usual and invited to offer my credentials as a member of the press. But here is the thing. These days, I have an audience like a bottle of Ribena. It is concentrated goodness. Gone are the days when Google couldn’t tell my magazine pages apart from the seething Talk Audio forum. That had four million posts and bazillions of pages seen and put any review I wrote bang at the top of all Google searches. The base credential for any news site for CES accreditation is 10,000 visitors and you, dear reader may congratulate yourself on being in an audience of about half that.

Thing is, as I found out that time I wrote a stinking review of a RAINBOW amplifier and went on holiday, I was being read by ALL the great and the good of mobile electronics and HiFi. Just part of their coffee breaks and some even looked forward to reading my Monday regular column, but they mattered. And this rough review burned. I came home to a miserable webmaster who educated me on the term ‘Firestorm’ or a Jolly Big Fuss On The Internet. For one moment I had the emotional ice-water of thinking that his warehouse had burned down and was bereft, only to feel a bit vexed that such a row had ensued when it was explained. It was a big audience back then but it had all the most important people looking, which was a bit scary to find out.

And all this time later, that means that a slew of the right people still check in here to see mostly HiFi launch news and the rarer editorials these days. I had that confirmed very recently, with the write up of the lovely Tony & Co. at Videotec. He had a flurry of telephone calls after my story of his fixing my beloved Denon Pioneer-clone LaserDisc player was published.

I knew I didn’t have ten thousand souls looking in to the site but was sure my readership is quality (that’s YOU) and that my access to a digital CES could only be a goodness. But I didn’t have credentials that fitted any more. If credentials are a plural of a thing then why not also a verb? I simply didn’t credent. Thus began a 13-email string!

I replied to the CES Registration without the Google analytics and got an auto reply explaining that I need to offer more information. Standard for those who omit something. I replied with an impassioned mail but got another form response. I asked nicely. I bragged about how long I had been coming and how I had been on the Scholarship Journalist programme twice. All to no avail. all I got was: “We do not have visibility into the approval process for CES. Please upload your credentials directly to your registration record, and a member of the planning team will review and respond accordingly. If you do not have the credentials for submission, we encourage you to participate in CES as a Consumer.” They even offered me the chance to pay to do so. (OOOHhh dear… that is how to trigger a journalist!) At which point I went a bit bridge-burn mode and tried proper vile.. and it was like water off a duck’s back.

So I emailed the boss of the entire organisation, who must be absurdly swamped right now, with a sad but briefly impassioned plea. He must have recalled me, as we have fishing in common and met at the Groucho club in London at the Scholarship Journalist event. He gave me a signed copy of his book and even wrote me a special message relevant to my mobile electronics specialisation, within it.

He didn’t reply directly, but later that day, my CES Press registration simply came through, passed as if by magic.

But I think it was by brief instruction of the Guv’Nor.

I have had a love/hate relationship with Sin City since my first trip, when I got ill after eating shrimp from a buffet in a huge room that Orion car audio had hired. It was jointly funded by ProPlus and Fusion, who paid my flights and hotel, without anything more than wanting me to get on in my career (LOL, and owe them a debt of gratitude, I guess!) but it was an incredible experience. I stayed in the Hacienda, where the Mandalay Bay now stands – that is how long ago it was. Since then, I have been fifteen times for work and twice to keep my vow to bring MeJulie to experience it.

I have real problems ‘holidaying’ there as it was always a place of crazy amounts of work. Hit the search button on the site with ‘CES’ and then keep pressing “PREVIOUS” and you will go back through so much stuff, you my may even marvel.

You will certainly understand why I was so vexed to be denied at first! All of which serves to let you know I am going to Vegas Virtually this year for CES! Keep an eye for new stuff as it happens. I may even go onto USA hours to get the stuff published when it’s hottest.