Comdex Trade Show Cancelled Again

Comdex, once one of the largest high-tech tradeshows in the world, has been cancelled for a second year, the show's owner said Tuesday.

Comdex 2005 was cancelled despite the efforts of its owner MediaLive International Inc. to take the conference out of limbo. The tradeshow, which is traditionally held in Las Vegas, Nev., in November, was cancelled last year for the first time after 25 years.

In a statement, MediaLive said it had been working "diligently to determine how Comdex can best meet the future needs of the industry."

"Through our continued discourse across the community of IT buyers, vendors and other stakeholders, we've made significant progress," the San Francisco-based company said. "However, considerable work remains to build an industry event to serve the industry as it matures with the same success that Comdex did in its infancy."

Comdex was launched in 1979 by Sheldon Adelson, who at the time was the owner of Needham, Mass.-based, Interface Group. The show was sold in the mid-1990s to Softbank.

At the time of the sale, Comdex attracted more than 200,000 visitors to the Las Vegas Strip. After Softbank, the conference grew smaller under a string of owners, as former exhibitors focused on smaller, but highly targeted, information-technology events.