NAB's Cash Cow
by Paul McGoldrick
My first NAB -- and don't even think of asking how many years ago! -- was in the lobby of a hotel. The exhibits now occupy all of the Las Vegas Convention Center plus both floors of the Sands Convention Center. With a new South Hall being built (roughly on the site of the old West Hall, such is the strange geography of Las Vegas) the show will have even more room for expansion. But the National Association of Broadcasters, as an organization, is an anachronism. Its broadcast members are unhappy with the support that they get, not because of the issues themselves, but because the needs at the different ends of the spectrum are totally different. The networks and the affiliates are at odds on a permanent basis, but that is the subject of a different editorial. . .
Once a year, at the Spring NAB show, the complete industry of media now exhibits its wares. The convergence (as everyone has called it) of conventional broadcasting and the computing industry is virtually complete, with streaming media, storage and control being the most touted aspects. The NAB sells everything associated with the show, minimizing its own expenses quite dramatically. You can buy not only your booth space and meeting rooms and suites, you can buy space on billboards, kiosks, maps, just about everything; and you can sponsor just about anything from lunches to awards to complete themes on the floor.
This great money maker -- for what is a lobbying body that is already flush -- has grown to be a disease of sorts: Something that NAB cannot now give up. But even so there is no real effort to satisfy the needs of the visitors, who range from the potential buyers to distributors to the trade press, and who come from all over the world. In all the years of expansion in square feet of area and in the number of exhibitors there has been no expansion in time. It is not possible to spend any kind of real time with any vendor at the show and still see the whole thing; just in walking terms -- for someone extremely highly organized -- it would take two-and-a-half days to physically walk up and down all the aisles.
Most exhibitors spend a very large amount of money "doing" NAB. Even a smaller company with, say a 20 x 20 ft. booth is likely to spend upwards of $100 k on the show with booth costs, floor rental, power, labor, freight, drayage, employee travel and hotel expenses, etc. Although everyone is exhausted at the end of those four days (and I have spent many years on the exhibiting side of the aisle carpet) if your potential customers cannot find an opportunity to visit, then at least part of your investment has been wasted.
Although I disagree with NAB on many things it does and does not do, I do not disagree that the Spring exhibition is important to the broadcast and peripheral industries. But to be fair to everyone the show needs to be expanded to 5 days. This will find a lot of objection not just from NAB but from Las Vegas itself. The city as a whole does not like single night hotel check-ins on Fridays and Saturdays -- that's when the well-heeled weekenders travel from Los Angeles and environs to gamble from a Friday arrival through a Sunday departure. With the current exhibit days at NAB being from Monday through Thursday most visitors will arrive Sunday and leave Friday without affecting the gambling trade. Exhibitors, of course, will arrive before the weekend anyway if they are in any way concerned with the booth setup.
Mind you, I think I preferred NAB when the power requirements for the
exhibit floor were comparable to a street rather than a state. At least
when NAB is taking place the power load between day and night is more closely
balanced than at other times, although I personally would not mind all the
power from the Hoover Dam being diverted to California with the desert being
allowed to retake the Las Vegas "metro." By comparison the lobby
of a hotel in Chicago was comfortable.