When the Consumer Electronics Show first opened its doors in June 1967, few could have predicted the influence it would have on the future of technology.

Hosted in New York City, the inaugural event gathered 17,500 attendees and more than 100 exhibitors eager to showcase the latest consumer gadgets.

The keynote address was delivered by Motorola chairman Bob Galvin, setting the tone for what would become the most important stage in consumer technology.

These photos from the 1960s to the 1980s show the early years of CES and how the show began to shape the world of consumer technology.

Throughout the decades, CES became the launchpad for innovations that transformed everyday life. The videocassette recorder made its debut in 1970, forever changing home entertainment.

The early 1980s brought the camcorder and the compact disc player, while later years would introduce the MiniDisc, DVD, digital radio, and even Microsoft’s Xbox.

Each unveiling not only marked a step forward in technology but also reflected the shifting ways people connected, entertained themselves, and interacted with the digital world.

Beginning in 1978, CES expanded to a twice-yearly format. The Winter Consumer Electronics Show was held each January in Las Vegas, while the Summer Consumer Electronics Show took place in Chicago every June.

For more than fifteen years, the biannual schedule provided companies with two major stages to present their latest devices.
By the mid-1990s, however, attendance at the summer shows began to decline. Organizers attempted to shift the event to other cities, including a planned show in Philadelphia in 1995, but the effort was abandoned after competition from the newly created E3 gaming expo.

In 1998, CES adopted the once-a-year format that continues today, with Las Vegas serving as its permanent home.

The Las Vegas show grew to an enormous scale, rivaled only by construction and heavy equipment expos.

Setting up, running, and dismantling CES could take more than two weeks, a measure of its size and complexity.

Alongside the new technology, promotional models—first called CES guides in 1967—became a familiar part of the exhibition halls, underlining the show’s mix of business, marketing, and spectacle.

Photographs shown here preserve the atmosphere of these early gatherings.

Crowded booths, bold product displays, and the unveiling of what were then cutting-edge devices capture the formative decades of CES, when the modern consumer technology industry was still taking shape.

The showfloor at the 1982 Summer CES at McCormick Place in Chicago.

(Photo credit: Consumer Electronics Association / Mashable / Wikimedia Commons).