Comdex organizer declares Bankruptcy, competitor challenges with new event. (First In/First Out).

Key3Media Group, the organizer of the Comdex, Net World+Interop, JavaONE, and TechXNY (formerly PC Expo) trade shows, has declared Chapter 11. As of late last year, the company listed assets of $241.2 million and liabilities of $441 million.

The filing, which had been expected since November, puts the company in a difficult position going forward. The reorganization plan is backed by investment funds managed by Thomas Weisel Capital Partners (TWCP), which already owns about 68 percent of Key3Media's bank debt and about 38 percent of its bonds. Under the agreement, TWCP will provide $30 million in debtor-in-possession financing so the company can continue operations. But post-reorganization, the firm will own 99 percent of the re-capitalized company, with general unsecured creditors and bondholders owning the remaining one percent of equity.

Key3Media has indicated that its scheduled trade shows will take place as planned--although the company has already shed its VON show, which was sold back to Pulver.com, from whom Key3 purchased the show in September 2001.

But in a shot fired across Key3's sinking bow, competitor Jupitermedia has announced a new trade show that will take place in the same city--and at the exact same time--as Comdex. Computer Digital Expo Fall 2003, "America's 21st Century Information Technology Conference & Expo," will take place at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas from November 1721. Jupiter says the event will include four days of exhibits and five days of seminars at the new 1.8 million square foot Mandalay Bay Convention Center and hotel campus.

"The owner of Comdex, Key3Media, Inc., has filed under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy code," Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of Jupitermedia, said in announcing the new show. "In view of the uncertainty that this creates for Comdex, we are launching Computer Digital Expo to meet the industry's needs for such an event."

Meckler, who sold his InternetWorld trade show (among other assets) to Penton Media in 1998, went on to say that "to make the transition as seamless as possible for the business and technology professionals who traditionally block out these dates in November, we're running our event during the same week that Comdex ran." Meckler indicated that, in addition to running every fall in Las Vegas, Computer Digital Expo will run every spring in Boston.

Notwithstanding the fact that Comdex is currently still scheduled to occur, does the industry--in its current state--even need a new major event, and one that will presumably compete with CES? Computer Digital Expo (Codex? Compudix?) will focus not on the PC-though one could argue that Comdex no longer does either--but rather on "computers, portable devices, hosted services, and pervasive access, which, at least to us, sounds a lot like CES.

It's possible, of course, that Key3Media will cancel Comdex or that, post-reorganization, Weisel Capital will sell the company to someone who will scrap it. But even without Comdex, Computer Digital Expo has chosen an odd time--and an odd way--to hype a new industry trade event.

And what's that old saying about not kicking a man when he's down?