CES 2022: Up, Up and...?
First Omicron, and now travel woes threaten CES 2022 attendance
Imagine you’re in a freezing, half-empty football stadium during a massive hailstorm. The field is iced over and the goalposts are barely visible, but the already-soaked players are on the field, resolute and ready for the opening kickoff.
That’s exactly where CES, the world’s largest tech event, finds itself as the doors to CES 2022 prepare to open to the media Monday and to all attendees Wednesday. It’s not hail—at least not yet—but bad weather may add yet another headache to the show’s organizers.
Over the past few weeks many large exhibitors have withdrawn from in-person participation or severely cut back on the number of people they would be sending to Las Vegas—all citing safety concerns due to the Covid-19 pandemic, especially the Omicron variant of the virus. Many tech journalists, including this one, have decided to avoid crowds and travel and cover the show virtually.
Last Friday, the Consumer Technology Association, which runs CES, announced that CES 2022 would end a day early on Friday instead of Saturday “…as an additional safety measure to the current health protocols that have been put in place for CES.” Those CES 2022 health protocols include providing proof of Covid-19 vaccination—and picking up a free box of the Abbott BinaxNOW Covid-19 self-test kit as you pick up your show badge.
And now, to add insult to injury, weather problems have combined with the pandemic, which already reduced the number of pilots available to airlines, to throw a wrench into travel to Las Vegas.
On Saturday, 36 flights (6% of all flights) into Harry Reid International Airport (formerly McCarran International Airport) were canceled and 96 flights (16%) were delayed, according to statistics on the FlightAware website.
Some travel experts expect weather and airline staffing problems to continue to disrupt travel this week.
The CTA knew it was rolling the dice last spring when it announced that CES 2022 would once again be an in-person event (with a virtual attendance option) for the first time since 2020, when it drew 170,000 attendees. CES 2021 was all virtual. Of course the CTA, which made its decision as the pandemic appeared to be waning, could not have known that the Omicron variant would arrive just in time to scare many attendees and exhibitors from attending the real event.
But there is good news.
Since so many of us have become adept at attending webinars and teleconferencing with Zoom and other apps, it won’t be a problem for many exhibitors to get their product and technology announcements out to the public.
Instead of—or in addition to—presenting their new products before ballrooms full of journalists, many #CES2022 announcements will be made via video on YouTube or on company websites.
That includes exhibitors like Samsung, AMD, TCL, Sony, LG, Nvidia, Hisense, Procter & Gamble and many others.
Unfortunately, smaller exhibitors without public relations support may have a hard time getting noticed if foot traffic in Las Vegas this week proves to be light. Still, all will have the no-cost option to connect with attendees virtually, according to CTA CEO Gary Shapiro.
At the end of the day CES 2022 promises to showcase major advances in health tech, autonomous vehicles, 5G communications, mobile computing and much more. It may not hold a candle to CES 2020, but it’s still worth tuning in.
©️Copyright 2022 Robert S. Anthony, Stadium Circle Features
Digimentors Virtual Events
A word from Digimentors, a virtual and hybrid events firm I work with which specializes in taking in-person events virtual.