Good-bye E3, hello C4.

The City of Los Angeles says it will host its own multimedia convention in 1998, to help fill the void left by the departure of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) last year to Atlanta.

The new show, tentatively titled C4 the name of a popular plastic explosive will not directly compete with E3, organizers say. The show is simply meant to focus national attention on L.A. as a multimedia hub.

But the targeted participants, namely digital entertainment content providers, include companies that currently show at E3.

Santa Monica-based Pulse Entertainment Inc., which creates CD-ROM games, digital authoring tools and online entertainment, is debuting two new products at E3 this week in Atlanta. But CEO Bill Woodward said he would just as soon debut future products in L.A.

“At the end of the day, it depends” on which show offers better publicity and access to business connections, Woodward said. “But you’d sure like to do it in your own backyard.”

The difference between the two shows, C4 organizers say, is that E3 is primarily a trade show, where buyers and sellers of multimedia software primarily games and entertainment programs come together to do deals.

“This (C4) will be more of a film festival-meets-awards ceremony” for online and other digital entertainment forms, said Jim Jonassen, chairman of the Larkin Group and founder of Lawnmower, a Los Angeles multimedia association.

Jonassen has been tapped by Mayor Richard Riordan’s office to lay groundwork for C4, and is meeting with local companies, industry groups and city officials to rally them to the cause. He said he hopes C4 will emerge as the digital entertainment equivalent of the Cannes Film Festival.

The show has a targeted opening of September 1998.

Jonassen said the show will start out small and likely first be held in a hotel. In subsequent years, it would expand to the Los Angeles Convention Center.

But Alan Meckler, CEO of Mecklermedia Corp. and organizer of this spring’s successful Internet World convention in L.A., said the city would be smarter to aim for a big debut event.

“If you can’t get 400 exhibitors on the first shot it’s not going to be considered a serious show,” Meckler said.

Jonassen is undaunted. “We know year one for C4 is not going to be another E3,” he said. “But how does any industry start out? Usually small.”

The impetus for C4 came this spring from Riordan’s office, which has identified multimedia as an industry L.A. should nurture. Riordan advisors see promise for major jobs and tax revenue growth in the industry, and at Riordan’s request the City Council earlier this year lowered the business license tax on multimedia companies.

“There’s at least 1,000 multimedia companies in the City of L.A.,” said Steve MacDonald, director of Riordan’s L.A.’s Business Team. “That’s more companies than in any city anywhere else in he world.”

But because multimedia firms are not concentrated in a small area, as are those in Santa Clara’s Silicon Valley and San Francisco’s South of Market region, L.A. is often overlooked nationally and internationally as a multimedia hub, MacDonald said.

C4 would help address that problem.

MacDonald said he doesn’t know how much money the city would commit to the event, but that it would offer a generous amount of in-kind support.

For their part, E3 organizers say their show is already so well-entrenched that a homegrown L.A. affair would have little impact on their bottom line.

“I don’t believe the industry is interested in supporting multiple events,” said Doug Lowenstein, president of the Interactive Digital Software Association, which owns E3.

E3 got its start in Los Angeles in 1995 and was held here again in 1996, until demand for exhibitor space forced organizers to move the show to a facility larger than L.A.’s Convention Center.

“Because of the entertainment industry, L.A. was a natural” to host E3, said Henry Munford, director of marketing at the Georgia World Congress Center. “But they very quickly maxed-out their space. We just kept our name up in front of everybody and we were available with more space.”

The Atlanta facility has about 1.5 million square feet of exhibition space, compared to the L.A. center’s 975,000 square feet.

Still, even as it makes plans for a new show, L.A. is lobbying to get E3 back before the end of the century.

“I think the organizers are going to take a look (after this week’s show in Atlanta) to see if their move was a good one,” said Claudia Brett, director of L.A. Convention Center sales. Brett said that if the show draws fewer attendees, E3 organizers may consider a return to L.A.

Lowenstein of the IDSA said a return to L.A. is possible.

“Where the show is located (after 1999) is an open question,” Lowenstein said. “My goal is to find a city that will be home to the show for a long, long time.”