This week the NEC in Birmingham is home to the Gadget Show Live, and I paid a visit.
The Gadget Show is a TV programme on Channel 5 here in the UK. Each week the presenters look at different gadgets, and for a few days each year there is an event held for the public to come along and see different gadgets and even get hands on with them.
I decided to go along yesterday and see for myself. The event had been sold out for a few months now and when I got near the NEC there were huge queues of cars waiting to get into the car park. Once all that had been done, it was the long walk from the car park to the event itself (anyone who has ever been to the NEC will know just what I mean).
I’m not really sure what I was expecting from the show. I have been to CES in Las Vegas a number of times, but that isn’t open to the public, so I think the first thing that really surprised me was the huge number of families and children at the event. Also, the event was more about companies selling their products rather than showing off their technology.
Some big names were there, such as Sony and Panasonic, showing off 3D televisions along with High Street names like PC World and The Game selling computer systems and games.
For those of us who have been into gadgets, computers and consoles for a lot longer than we might care to admit, there was the Gadget Hall of Fame. Here you could see games consoles and computers dating back to the 70’s, including my very first computer, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
What was also nice was this area also has a Windows Media Center PC running. What wasn’t so good was that it kept blue screening!
I even managed to get a closer look at the Data Robotics Drobo FS I posted about earlier in the week: Data Robotics Launch the Drobo FS
The event as a whole felt a lot more like the Ideal Home Exhibition with gadgets than CES, but I suppose it wasn’t really that sort of show. I was expecting to see a lot more tech and a lot less sales, but on the whole everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves which is what the point of the show was.
For more information on the Gadget Show Live, click here: http://www.gadgetshowlive.net/
Thanks for the interesting ‘review’ Andrew. I was wondering if it was worth all the hassle of trying to get tickets. Clearly for those (of us) with a bit more access to the latest ‘tech’ it possibly wasn’t.
Yeah, I was a little disappointed, but then I think I'm used to the big fan fare that is CES. I was also surprised just how many "companies" were there to sell rather than to show off.
I thought it was going to be a bit more of somewhere where there were lots of things to try and new releases, but it was more just people selling stuff. I can't get to the big shows in America and wish I could. 🙁
Thanks Eden – I'm glad I was not the only one who thought that!
Andrew
Thanks Andrew for visiting and posting pictures of our display at the event. The Centre for Computing History put on that display of all the vintage tech and it was great to see that so many people were really into it. Shame about the Windows Media Center PC. It was the newest gadget on the stand and the only one that failed us!!! Hmmm…. 🙂
Thanks Jason
I spent more time there than I did the rest of the event put together 🙂
It was very cool to see so many of the computers and consoles I used as a kid.
I think the Media Center Pc problem was driver related 🙂
Still, it was a great display and I would love to see more!
Andrew
Ha, great to know 🙂 It makes all the hard work that goes into it worth while.
I'm pretty sure the problem with the Media Centre PC was a hardware fault. It was quite random and only happened after the machine had been on for an hour or so. Bad RAM or something. I run media centre at home at it performs perfectly!
Great site. Been looking at the how-to section. Top work!
Cheers Jason