The ESA, The organisation behind E3 are reportedly making an announcement today to reveal their plans to downsize E3 only for the press. GameSpot’s Curt Feldman writes:

One reason behind the downsizing of the show can be attributed to the dollar cost of the event to exhibitors, including the demands on companies to assign large numbers of staff to focus on the show, expenses associated with travel to the show, and the added expense to polish game builds and demos to be shown to attendees.

At E3 2006, over 400 exhibitors were displaying their games, movies, and hardware to some 60,000 attendee’s. The hotels and service industry in Los Angeles take in over $50 million during E3 every year - The same amount that attendees and exhibitors spend during the three-day event.

Sources said that rather than fill the 540,000 square feet of the cavernous LACC, the show will take place at a location that would support exhibitors in meeting room space only, with companies showing their wares to a select group of attendees numbering in the hundreds rather than the thousands.

Even with the downsizing, The reduced costs could outweigh the PR trade-off that the smaller developers rely on E3 for.

Read (Gamespot)