The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the owner and producer of the International CES Show, today announced that verified attendance at the 2015 International CES reached a record 176,676 industry professionals with 48,833 coming from outside of the U.S. The 2015 CES also set a number of other records, including more than 3,600 exhibitors, more than 2.23 million net square feet of exhibit space, 6,952 media and analyst attendees, 703,602 mentions of #CES2015 during the show with 7.51 billion total potential Twitter impressions, and 153 countries represented. The independent audit, performed by Veris Consulting, LLC, confirms CES’ status as the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. The full CES attendance audit summary report will be available online at the end of June.

As CES and the consumer technology industry continue to grow, CEA is establishing procedures to cap attendance at the 2016 International CES at 176,000, or close to a level comparable to the 2015 CES, in an effort to ensure that attendees continue to have a quality experience.

The new procedures that CEA will enact for the 2016 CES include:

Enhanced credentialing:

• New registrants or previous registrants who did not attend the 2014 or 2015 CES will be subject to new enhanced credentialing and tighter qualification criteria. This means that although individuals may have qualified for registration in previous years, they must resubmit credentials to qualify for the 2016 CES.
• To qualify, all registrants must provide a brief description of their industry affiliation along with links to their company website with an employee roster, a description of their business engagement at CES or a link to a current publication or article the registrant authored or in which they were quoted or cited as an industry professional. Alternately, registrants may also provide a business card, health insurance card or other proof of employment verification. In addition, in order to expedite affiliated registrants through the verification process, CES will ask registrants to include a business email address. Additional details can be found here once registration opens later this year.
• Those who attended one of the past two shows will be allowed to register without providing additional industry qualifications.
• CES remains a trade-only event and is not open to the general public.

A new registration fee structure:

• CEA is implementing a $100 advanced fee for all registrants beginning July 8 when registration launches.
• CEA is providing alumni who attended the 2014 or 2015 CES with a 30-day window of complimentary registration before the $100 fee goes into effect for this audience.
• Registration for qualified media will remain free of charge.
• Registration fees will increase to $300 beginning December 21 through the 2016 CES. This move is to encourage more registrants to sign up prior to December 21 to allow CEA ample time to verify credentials for those who register after that date.

“Our new procedures will help us cap the overall growth in CES attendance, promoting a quality business experience for our guests while focusing show and consumer technology industry growth in key areas, including new markets and trends,” said Karen Chupka, CEA senior vice president, International CES and corporate business strategy.

“The average CES attendee has 33 business meetings at our event so it’s crucial that we make the networking and dealmaking opportunities as easy as possible for our guests,” said Gary Shapiro, CEA president and CEO. “CES is the world’s leading annual innovation event and is setting records across every major category including international attendance. We must always innovate to ensure that CES remains the must-attend event for any professional connected to innovation. These new procedures will help us meet this goal.”

“We believe this number strikes the balance we seek between producing a show that truly reflects the size and scope of the global consumer technology industry while helping our participants have a positive, quality business experience,” said Chupka. “We won’t, however, turn qualified attendees away at the door! We will refine our new processes as necessary during registration in an effort to stay within our target attendance.”

Registration for the 2016 CES will open on July 8. More details on 2016 CES policies and procedures can be found here.