NAB Show 2021 canceled

The National Association of Broadcasters has announced the cancellation of the 2021 NAB Show in Las Vegas, which was originally slated for mid-October.

The trade show, unlike IBC, had always focused on having an in-person event with no backup plan announced in case of rising COVID concerns. 

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The show is now planning to offer a virtual option similar to last year’s event through its Amplify platform.

In a statement, Chris Brown of NAB writes:

For more than a year we have worked tirelessly to bring our industry together safely in Las Vegas at NAB Show. Unfortunately, the pandemic and surge of the Delta variant has presented unexpected and insurmountable challenges for our global community.

As we have always kept the best interest and safety of the industry as our priority, it has become apparent in the face of these challenges that we can no longer effectively host NAB Show or our co-located events, the Radio Show and Sales and Management Television Exchange, in person.

The next in-person NAB Show event is scheduled for April 23-27, 2022.

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The cancelation follows multiple vendors pulling out from the 2021 show including Sony, Ross Video, Canon and Panasonic.

“Whilst we are saddened not to be able to connect with many of our customers, partners and friends in person at NAB, we fully support the difficult decision made by the organisers. Instead of connecting in Las Vegas our local teams in the US and around the world, for NewTek, NDI and Vizrt, stand ready to support our customers,” said Steve Wind-Mozley, CMO of Vizrt Group in reaction to the news.

“NAB is always an effective way for us to meet lots of customers and partners, and to share our latest thinking and innovations. To bridge this gap, we will be shifting to a series of online customer and industry events, as we did during 2020 and the first half of 2021. We continue to see live trade shows as a key part of our industry engagement and are looking forward to NAB Show in April 2022,” said Neil Maycock, CMO and GM, Playout of Grass Valley.