Chaos as the world’s biggest tech show plunges into darkness due to power outage

The world’s biggest consumer electronics show has been switched off with a power outage shutting power to the main Central Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Centre (LVCC) during the annual CES show.

Over 160,000 attendees are in Las Vegas where the latest in TVs, sound, cars and gadgets are being showcased.  At around 11.15am local time there was a power surge noticed in the North Hall of the LVCC and at the same time power went out in the main Central Hall.

An hour or more later the power is still out, and security have been forced to shut the doors of the show preventing people accessing the LVCC and for those inside the show already they are blocking access to the Central Hall.

With the show’s biggest exhibitors inside the Central Hall this is a multi-million dollar outage on many levels.

The likes of Samsung, Sony, LG, Hisense and Intel have had their exhibits shut down with millions of dollars in TVs and home appliances literally switched off.

Angus Jones from LG Australia told EFTM “It’s a massive investment to come to a show like this both at a corporate and a country level”

“Every minute of the day is scheduled and there’s not the flexibility to move things around”

However the impact is not just a loss of show time, there are multi-million dollar business deals being done here at CES with Mr Jones going on to say “major buying decisions are made by Australian retailers at this show, as well as the opportunity for us to promote LG to the Australian press”

With the outage ongoing he says “Unfortunately this has meant that a number of meetings are not going to happen now”.

CES have announced online that “We’ve been informed by Nevada Power that the outage has been addressed and they are in the process of restoring power. We will continue to restrict access until full power has been restored.”

They go on to say “We encourage you to visit other open show areas” – however the largest hall, with the biggest companies in it remains in the dark.

[ces18]