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I’ve been a regular Gadget Show Live attendee for the last few years and this year was no exception. As you probably already know Gadget Show Live is the UK’s version of CES in the states, well, it’s as close as we’re ever going to get. Now GSL has been referred to in previous years as ‘Gadget Stall Live’ because it has in the past had a bit on an indoor market feel about it but in 2014 I think they’ve got the message.

On entering the show this year it looked a lot more professional straight off the bat with an entry zone with loads of Gadget Show branding, big screens showing clips from the show and young ladies trying to sell you show guides for a tenner. But to give them credit your tenner did get you the guide plus a free gift which this year was, ahem, a pack of AA batteries (that may require some improved thought) but it did look at lot better than it has before.

Generally the whole look of the venue was greatly improved. When I've been before it just looked like the show was dumped into a couple of halls at the NEC but from this years experience they really seemed to have made an effort to make sure that you felt that you were at something a little more high end.

The indoor market element of the show was still there though. Around the outskirts of the hall were the things that were tech in the loosest word. There were a tonne of people selling radio control helicopters, kitchen stuff, magic pens, hair straighteners and even beanbags. This is also where the really hard sell happened with people who really couldn't care less trying to push their products on you (something I really don’t enjoy) but luckily as this was kept away from the serious tech you could easily avoid it.

So all the big guns were there. Microsoft, Samsung, Canon, Garmin, GoPro, Nokia, Olympus, Parrot, Philips, Peugeot, Pioneer, Sony, Synology, Toshiba, Volkswagen and Western Digital to name but a few (full exhibitor list here). They had all their newest and shiniest tech on show and you could get up and personal with it and there were some really lovely things to see but if you wanted to acquire any of it you’d have to dig deep. The one opinion that did seem to be trending is that there was nothing there that was really innovative and ground-breaking but I think this is more to do with the lack in innovation in the industry in general but it was still great to see it all laid out and ready to be played with.

The show floor was also sectioned of into a number of zones such as gaming, future tech, and kids. But the one thing that I did find interesting was the attention given to the British Inventors’ Project. This is new for 2014 and it celebrates and showcases the innovations and inventions from people right across the UK. There were also a number of live sessions which you could attend to find out more and I hope they carry this through to future shows.

On the whole it was a good experience. One thing that I did find disappointing though is the lack of freebies and giveaways. In years past there were always little nick-nacks that you could take away but this year it felt that they were only willing to do this if you sold your soul to them, something that I’m not willing to do.

The show also felt a lot smaller this year. You could pretty much cover it in a couple of hours. There were experience-based activities that you could wait an age queuing up for such as electric bikes and zombie-based laser tag but in adverse to the British way of waiting in line for things I really don’t have the patience and by that time I’d found the bar.

At the end of the day I attended the live show in the Super Theatre which is basically a live action version of the TV show. When I’d been before it was always a lot of fun but I’d missed 2013 so the last time I went I at least got to look at Suzi Perry in hotpants.

This year seemed a little strained. As it’s the ten year anniversary of the Gadget Show there was a retrospective look at the tech that we’d all experience over the last decade intermingled with challenges, games and audience interaction. One thing being the world record attempt at ‘Live Tetris’. So here is the premise. The Super Theatre is surrounded on three sides by the audience and on each side there was a bit of tech which supposedly consisted of a couple of massive motion capture cameras and a sound capture device. The idea was that one side of the auditorium (my side) would move left to right would and be captured by the camera to move the blocks across the screen. The other facets of the attendees would be responsible for rotating said blocks and the other to drop them into place. Now here’s the thing. I was sat at the back right next to the production desk and I could clearly hear what the producer was feeding into the earpiece of Jason Bradbury. It became very apparent very quickly that there was no tech being used apart from a bloke talking to someone controlling a Tetris screen who would then feed back what they said to Jason. However on this occasion communications got muddled and link between production bloke, Tetris bloke and Mr Bradbury broke down. The upshot being that they fudged it and as compensation made us the fastest ‘Tetrisers’ of the show but there was not most certainly the tech involved that they had led us to believe which is funny because they made us do a very similar thing with a supposedly big Kinect a couple of years ago whose validity I now question.

Apart from that it seemed OK apart from the bits when it seemed like a blatant advert but if you could see beyond that it was a pretty fun show.

So for 2014 full marks for effort but could do better in execution. Let’s see what next year brings.

Author

Paul Wright

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