8 Ways to Prepare for CES

I had heard about CES (Consumer Electronics Show), but never attended before….until this year. My husband (who works in the field of technology) had attended before and had a little better idea of what to expect. While there was a lot to get out of it, I don’t really feel I was prepared as much as I could have been. Based on our experience at CES 2016, I wanted to share with you 8 Ways to Prepare for CES.

8 Ways to Prepare for CES

1 – Rest after traveling and during the show! While there are some that may live near the location where CES is held, many of us have to travel. Whether traveling by plane, train or car, it can really take a lot out of you. Make it a goal to arrive the day (or night) before and get some rest because there is going to be a LOT of walking to do at the conference!!! While it’s fun to stay out late while traveling, it’s also important to get enough rest during the conference. You might even get lucky and have the opportunity to hang out in some comfortable massage chairs like we did!!

2 – Start off the day with something to eat and stay hydrated! We love starting our day with a cup of coffee and a bagel with cream cheese from Starbucks, but a banana or omelette is great too! Be sure to eat something in the morning and try to have snacks or cash on hand (to buy snacks out of available vending machines). There will be booths with little bowls of candy, but not a whole lot of places with food throughout the conference.

3 – Find out about public transportation available for the conference. We drove to Las Vegas for CES and one thing I can tell you there was a lot of was traffic! Tons of cars, honking and frustrated people waiting to get from one place to another. What we discovered was that there were buses taking attendees from hotels to the different CES locations. We also discovered the Las Vegas Monorail, which was both fun and affordable to use for going from the hotel to the conference. There were conference locations that the Monorail didn’t go to, so it’s important to find out what exhibits you want to see and the best way to get to them.

4 – Find out ahead of time where to find your conference badges. Some people were able to get their badges at the airport, while others of us picked them up at the conference. There were some conference halls that didn’t have them, so it’s important to find out where to pick them up so you don’t do any unnecessary walking around or stressing about finding them to get into the actual show.

5 – Be sure to bring business cards and a phone charger. I’ve been to a few blogging conferences and my experience is that both attendees and companies have business cards on hand. I was so surprised to find that there were a few vendors who either forgot their business cards or didn’t have them made in time. I was really glad we had business cards for The Mommy-Files to hand out to those vendors we wanted to talk to and potentially work with after CES. Also, don’t forget your phone charger! I took a lot of pictures and used my phone a lot for social media shares and other things during the conference and am so glad I had my phone charger! You don’t want to be stuck to an outlet waiting for your phone to charge – it’s worth the investment!

6 – Wear comfortable clothing and shoes. I cannot stress this enough! You will be walking a lot and you will want comfortable shoes. During CES is not the time to pull out your cute wedges or heels. You’ll want shoes that you can walk comfortably and safely in. I say safely because I’ve been the one to fall in my cute wedges and that is NOT fun! Ha ha! For the conference, I wore jeans, a short sleeved shirt, a sweater and my UGGs. I was very comfortable!!!

7 – Go with the expectation that you won’t see everything. I was told that CES was going to be big, but I really had no idea it was gonna be that big! I think we barely covered half of the conference. There were parts I really loved (Family Gaming, Toys, Drones, Household items) and others that were just plain old boring. I would recommend that you try to limit the amount of time you spend at each exhibit as well because it can be really easy to spend a lot of time at one exhibit and miss out on others.

8 – Do some sightseeing during your CES visit. CES 2016 was located in Las Vegas – a place we love to take road trips to and visit. We walked around the city some and took pictures of the beautiful architecture. We also did some shopping (Sephora and Alex & Ani anyone?) and then enjoyed lots of delicious food!

Do you have any tips for preparing for CES?