Nab 2020 Cancelled
nabshow.comFor those not aware, NAB is huge. Last year there were over 100,000 attendees. It's not as big as CES (around 180,000), but it's a big deal for the city and the many vendors exhibiting there. They made the right call by cancelling, but it's evidence of the impact of this pandemic.
Cynically I wonder if all of these cancellations are due to perceived (or actual) liability for holding huge gatherings that could be traced as the transmission site for infections that led to fatalities.
Are they doing the right thing because they're worried about the public's wellbeing or they're worried about backlash? Ultimately I suppose it doesn't matter why.
They've been seeing more and more sponsors and presenters pull out in recent days. Better to cancel it and seem like you're doing the right thing than hold a poorly attended convention, get bad PR for doing so, and still risk infecting a large number of people.
Unless that liability is worth more than the entire company it's not a good reason to cancel. Once the cancellations started nobody wants to be the one conference that isn't canceled.
A lot of companies (Adobe, Ross, AJA, Nikon, among others) had already pulled out of NAB before this announcement, the writing was on the wall.
If someone does the right thing for fear of public backlash, they still did the right thing.
Well, many of the largest exhibitors had already pulled out.