The second annual E for All Expo — the video game show at the Los Angeles Convention Center — is scheduled to take place in early October. The company has announced that Microsoft will exhibit at this year’s event.
E for All Expo is a consumer-oriented video game event put on by IDG World Expo, the same company that coordinates January’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The event brings together game players and game hardware and software makers under one roof, enabling gamers to test and buy the newest games and hardware. E for All Expo features gaming tournaments, seminars, celebrity appearances and other activities.
E for All Expo is one of two events that was created in the wake of the demise of the infamous E3 Expo, an annual gathering of game makers that took place at the same venue in Los Angeles each May. In 2007, E3 was replaced with two separate events: The E3 Media and Business Summit and E for All Expo.
While E3 Expo was ostensibly an industry trade show specifically for people in the game business, it had transformed over the years into a massive event that also drew the attendance of video game enthusiasts. E3 Expo was known for an ever-increasing array of after-hours parties, an upward-spiraling cavalcade of publicity stunts and louder and more extravagant booth displays as vendors sought to get out their message over the din of their competitors.
The dissolution of E3 Expo and the creation of the two separate events in 2007 was designed to counter that evolution. The media and business summit caters specifically to press and industry insiders, while E for All Expo is for video game enthusiasts, specifically.
Last year’s inaugural E for All Expo only featured one major console exhibitor — Nintendo. The absence of Sony and Microsoft caused many watchers to declare the event a failure, so Microsoft’s decision to attend this year’s E for All is a feather in the cap of the show’s management.
IDG World Expo and Macworld publisher Mac Publishing are both business units of International Data Group (IDG).