GFM Did Gadget Show Live (Review)

Its always nice to be able to say “Been there, done that“. Having just got back from the Trade Fair 2009, oops I mean the Gadget Show Live 2009 we thought it was best to let you know our opinions. We don’t really like being negative so we have tried to be as nice as possible:

The Birmingham NEC is always good an clean with ample parking and a pleasant walk to the venues. The entrance hall was light and airy, the toilets were clean(ish) and the staff were pleasant. Well that concludes our review of the Gadget Show Live 2009, only joking, it was not that bad. The queue to get in did stretch further than any eye can see (round a corner) and even though it was a large hall, it was packed. At first glance it looked good, lots of big named stalls and plenty of buzz. On closer inspection it was a lot of trade stands trying to sell some main-stream tosh. There were some good stalls with new gadgets hidden within the mass, so we had a chat to them and should hopefully be bringing you some good reviews soon.

Before we went we did say in our Gadget Show Live Preview that we were looking forward to visiting 3 particular parts of the show, this is how we got on:

The Future Home Feature
We were looking forward to having a look round the “three innovative room sets equipped with the latest technology and future concepts for lounge, kitchen and bedroom”. The living room was decorated tastefully with a universal remote for everything. The curtains, lighting, music, TV, were all controlled from one remote. A lot of fun but nothing spectacularly new. The kitchen bored us at it had no gadgets we could tangibly review and the bedroom…. Well the bedroom was actually highly innovative. It was conceptually brilliant and left us with a feeling of wonder. It had no bed, windows, doors, carpet or furnishings. It was a big white space with no technology at all. A bold statement from the designers, but not what we were expected to see.

The New Designers Section
Again we were salivating at the thought of seeing “fifteen of the best prototype domestic product designs that may become essential items in the future” but alas we could not actually find them. We went round the event several times for over 5 hours and did not see one. We put it down to the fact that technology is get increasingly smaller therefore they must have been so small they were invisible to the naked eye.

The Test Track
Surely they could not have forgotten to put this in? We raced to fined it and grab a go on the infamous Segways that they had promoted. Success we found the track and it was quite impressive… but alas, the queue was longer than our patience would allow and there was not one Segway to be seen. Still there was an impressive array of speed machines for people to test out and they all looked super quick, unfortunately the people on them were not what you would call “of a racing bread”. However this did give us the opportunity to half fulfil our promise. If you don’t like laughing at other people’s expense please do not watch the video at the end of this post as it could be construed as cruel. However if you have no guilt and like to laugh at other people learning how to ride new machines come join us in hell and watch away (the production quality is not great as it was done in a hurry).

Final Thought: It was a good stab for a first attempt and will be making the effort to go next year, with slightly lower expectations. If you want to check out more opinions and information of some of the gadgets that were there, take a look at Zath’s Gadget Show Live Roundup!