Former ESA VP to run downsized E3

In one of the industry's odder developments, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) will farm out the management of the new E3 to the old E3 team, now with International Data Group (IDG)--which is staging its own mass-attendance game expo that has been dubbed "the new E3."

The team in charge of the new, downsized event will consist of former ESA vice president and 11-year E3 show management veteran Mary Dolaher and her former ESA staffers.

The E3 Media and Business Summit will be held next July in Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California as well as seven select hotels in Santa Monica. It is expected to have fewer than 3,000 attendees, most of whom will apparently have to be invited by an ESA member. By contrast, the IDG-owned game event slated for October will cast a much wider net--it is open to the public who pay the reportedly $100 fee for a ticket--and be held in E3's old digs, the Los Angeles Convention Center.

As for the "new E3" digs, "hotel rooms will have their furnishings removed and be turned into meeting space where [E3 Media and Business Summit] exhibitors can talk with potential clients and journalists," according to IDG.