For 11 years, the ogres and elves roaming Figueroa Street sent a clear message: The video game geeks were back in town, selling out hotels, packing restaurants and keeping taxi meters clicking.
But the monsters, booth babes and celebrities that were hallmarks of the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, known as E3, are gone from downtown Los Angeles.
The convention attracted 65,000 people last year, making it the city's best-attended conference, according to LA Inc., the city's convention and visitors bureau.
This year's event, which starts tonight, has moved to Santa Monica and radically downsized. Now called the E3 Media and Business Summit, it's a sedate, invitation-only affair that's expected to draw 3,000 people for PowerPoint presentations and schmoozing over quiet cocktails.
The video game industry is still booming, with revenue from games predicted to grow 18% this year compared with 2006. But Sony Corp., Microsoft Corp. and other major video game companies that backed the huge show didn't think it was worth the energy or cost anymore.
L.A. is taking a financial hit as a result. The smaller show should contribute $7.8 million to the area economy, compared with more than $16.5 million from last year's event, according to estimates from LA Inc.
That contribution could drop to zero next year. Many of the event's biggest participants this year question whether it's worth the effort and predict the 2007 show will be the last.
"The E3 as we knew it, loved it and hated it is officially dead," said Mike Wilson, chief executive of Gamecock Media Group, an Austin, Texas-based game publisher that's holding a New Orleans-style funeral procession from Santa Monica Beach to Venice Beach to bid the show farewell.
Organized by the industry-funded Entertainment Software Assn., the event first came to Los Angeles in 1995 with 30,000 exhibitors, retailers, analysts and journalists. Except for a detour to Atlanta in 1998, the show has filled the Los Angeles Convention Center every year since. It often spilled over to other L.A. venues such as Dodger Stadium, the Shrine Auditorium and the Hollywood & Highland shopping center.
The booths became increasingly elaborate, the costumed characters ever more flamboyant and the parties bigger and louder. Activision Inc., publisher of the "Tony Hawk" series of games, one year installed a half-pipe for skateboarders in the convention center. Another year, the U.S. Army had soldiers rappel from helicopters. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo Co. tried to outdo one another by inviting big-ticket entertainers, including music artists the Killers and Beck, to their parties.
