In-Person 2021 NAB Show Nixed

The 2021 NAB Show is shifting to a virtual event, and won't convene in-person at the Las Vegas Convention Center Oct. 9-13, the association announced Wednesday. The 2022 NAB Show, set for April 23-27, is still planned to be in-person, NAB said. See our earlier news bulletin here.

Several other conventions are still set to proceed, including CES 2022 in early January.. Among wireless events, the Mobile World Congress is still slated to meet Oct. 26-28 in Los Angeles and the Competitive Carrier Association annual show is next week in Phoenix. The Wireless Infrastructure Association meets Oct. 4-7 in Orlando. The Americas Spectrum Management Conference Oct. 12-13 in Washington, D.C., was supposed to be a hybrid event, but is now fully virtual. NARUC didn't comment Wednesday on whether it will reconsider its plan for a fully in-person Nov. 7-10 annual meeting in Louisville (see our report here). The Public Radio Super Regional gathering planned for November is delayed to 2022.

NAB’s announcement blamed the decision on the spread of COVID-19's delta variant. Vendors such as Sony, Panasonic, Canon and Ross Video recently announced their withdrawals (see 2109100038). The delta “surge” has “presented unexpected and insurmountable challenges for our global community,” said NAB Managing Director-Global Connections and Events Chris Brown. “We can no longer effectively host NAB Show or our co-located events, the Radio Show and Sales and Management Television Exchange, in person.”

Along with the large vendors pulling out of the show, at least one network affiliate group also pulled out in the weeks before the cancellation announcement, several broadcast attorneys told us. NAB had touted affiliate group in-person attendance in a July news release. “Multiple factors went into this difficult decision, including the sentiments of the NAB Show community, health and safety concerns, and our desire to deliver a convention that helps our exhibitors, partners and attendees prosper,” emailed an NAB spokesperson. “Ultimately, we concluded that it was not in the best interest of the NAB Show community to continue with an in-person convention.”

The back-to back cancellations of the in-person 2020 and 2021 NAB shows are considered likely to create funding difficulties for the trade group. NAB “remains strong” and has “sound options for sustaining the association financially in the short-term, while remaining healthy and well-positioned to serve our members over the long-term,” said the spokesperson.

NAB voted in 2020 to require additional payments from members due to “extreme loss of revenue” from the 2020 show’s cancellation (see 2010290064). That loss was pegged at 70% of operating revenue, in a 2020 letter to members. The first payment of the additional funds is due Dec. 31. After the 2020 cancellation, NAB also instituted a hiring freeze and reduced budgets and executive salaries, it said then. “We are now focusing our attention on the 2022 show in April,” said the spokesperson now.

Participants

It’s unclear how the physical cancellation will affect exhibitors.

Electronics Research Vice President-Marketing Bill Harland said he has received no information about whether or how the exhibit fees and other expenses will be addressed, and that he learned of the cancellation Wednesday when everyone found out. “I was very surprised,” he said. ERI had already begun shipping materials to Las Vegas for the event, and was planning to arrive with the usual complement of employees. Media Service Group was “on the fence” about attending, said Bob Heymann, of the broker's Chicago office: “The NAB has now made that decision for us. We look forward to hopefully returning to Las Vegas in April.”

“We’re obviously disappointed for the whole broadcast ecosystem,” emailed One Media Executive Vice President-Strategic and Legal Affairs Jerald Fritz. One Media had extensive ATSC 3.0 demos planned for the event. “NAB had done a remarkable job in preparing a safe Show, and we were looking forward to seeing colleagues and sharing innovations and ideas,” Fritz said. The lack of an in-person show won’t slow 3.0 rollout, said BitPath CEO John Hane. “Vendors, station groups, programmers, MVPDs, local engineers -- we all learned how to do this with everyone working remotely,” Hane said. “I can’t even remember the last in-person meeting. So this is normal.” Harland said the lack of the gathering will make networking harder. “This is THE global media show for the radio and television industry,” he said.

Several state broadcast associations that still plan in-person events told us NAB’s move doesn’t affect their plans. “We’re still a go,” said Georgia Association of Broadcasters President Bob Houghton of GABCon, planned for October. “I’m still recovering from today’s news,” he said. “The cancellation of the NAB show will not affect our plans to move forward with our state convention,” said Kansas Association of Broadcasters President Allison Mazzei. KAB’s convention starts Oct. 3. “We’re looking forward to resuming our in-person format with new safety guidelines in place. We’re asking anyone who does not feel comfortable attending to stay home and join us next year.”

ATSC

ATSC President Madeleine Noland is “saddened for the industry” that COVID-19 forced the cancellation of another in-person NAB Show, she told us. “I’m also saddened that this industry continues to be impacted by this pandemic,” she said: “I can see and understand” NAB’s decision.

“Plan A” for ATSC was to host a “nice-size booth” at the NAB Show that simulated a retail storefront to showcase NextGenTVs from LG, Samsung and Sony, plus set-top boxes and receiver products from other manufacturers, said Noland. In the booth would have been “major displays” from some of the more active ATSC members, she said. “We were also going to have a stage where people were going to make presentations. We had a number of folks who wanted to gather events in the booth.” Noland now envisions “online events" and thinks "it’s important to note that we will try to do something roughly in the time frame that NAB was to be.”

Noland conceded that watching the delta variant evolve as the show dates approached was akin to sleeping with one eye open, but “I think that’s the case with everything going on,” she said. “Part of the reality these days is you have to be flexible. Show organizers are working hard to make sure that in-person events are safe, as much as possible, and that there are online options when they are possible.”

CES would need to wait yet another year to reconvene Jan. 5-8 in Las Vegas if the 2022 installment is canceled after scrapping the January 2021 show, Noland said. CTA didn’t respond to requests for comment. CES, like the NAB Show before it, will require attendees to be fully vaccinated. Both events contracted with Clear’s free mobile app for U.S. attendees to share proof of vaccination. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not yet having issued “formal guidance” on boosters, “CES is closely monitoring the situation,” said CTA Tuesday.