Canceling Physical CES 2021 Gives CTA 5 Months to Plan ‘Compelling’ Virtual Event
CTA’s decision to scratch CES 2021 as a physical event gives the association five months and nine days to craft an online experience that outdoes that of most virtual trade shows run during the pandemic, officials said. “Moving to an all-digital format for CES is simply the right thing to do,” said CEO Gary Shapiro by video. “Our exhibitors partners and thought leaders will now have the time to plan, to think, to create compelling ways to engage digital audiences from around the world.”
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The decision, reached with executive board involvement in recent days and announced Tuesday, “comes as no surprise,” said one CTA member insider Tuesday. “I just don’t see how they could have made it work.” CTA “had hoped to host an all-in-person event in Las Vegas, but given the current public health concerns, it’s just not possible to bring everyone safely together,” said Shapiro.
CTA in the end decided to do “what’s best for members,” not “what’s best for CTA,” one member of the association’s Board of Industry Leaders told us. Exhibitors would have been on the hook for CES booth payments in August -- deferred from June 1 over the 2021 show’s uncertain future -- and that likely played a role in Tuesday's timing of the decision, said the member. Most assume CTA will take a financial hit through its contractual obligations with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said the member. Neither CTA nor the LVCVA commented on that.
One CES exhibitor executive credited CTA with being “incredibly courageous for making this announcement now.” To “respect people’s health and safety at a great financial disadvantage to CTA” is laudable, said the executive. The early decision also allows companies to plan, said the person: “Many of us start our CES planning the day after CES ends.”
It’s not known how big a role CTA’s recent COVID-19 survey played in the association’s conclusion there's no way of safely convening a physical CES 2021 in early January. The survey form suggested CTA was weighing extraordinary protocols to keep attendees safe, including the use of mandatory onsite COVID-19 diagnostic testing (see 2006230051). CTA declined to share the survey findings, but one insider who saw a summary told us the results that came back were “very troubling.”
Many factors shape the current COVID-19 landscape, none of them favorable to running a physical CES 2021. Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, climbed to 13th among U.S. counties with the most confirmed COVID-19 cases, Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center map showed Tuesday afternoon.
With cases spiking in many U.S. regions, business travel has “not yet returned in any meaningful way,” said Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian on a Q2 call. The airline “typically” draws half its revenue from business travel in a normal year, he said. Las Vegas Sands, owner of the Venetian and Palazzo, is “pessimistic” about the return of convention business to the city next year, said a top executive last week (see 2007230066). MGM Resorts executives are expected to repeat similar messaging when they release Q2 results Thursday.
If anyone can pull off a virtual event “in a way that is compelling, CTA can," said SVS Sound CEO Gary Yacoubian. “They won’t do it in a half-ass way.” Any other virtual trade show he has participated in was a “glorified Zoom call,” said Yacoubian, an executive board member who declined to discuss its recent deliberations. “I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be” what CES 2021 will be, he said: “I have no inside information, but I know CTA never does anything halfway.”
The virtual world “is one that we need to be better at anyway,” said Yacoubian. “This is sort of a baptism of fire into that. I would predict that CES will have a virtual element going forward.”
ProSource CEO Dave Workman, has “mixed feelings” about cancellation of CES 2021 as a physical event, he emailed Tuesday. The decision is a “hard recognition that we are still going to be dealing with this new world for much longer than any of us would like,” he said. “While I commend any and all efforts to try and replace a live and in person event with an all digital alternative, it just isn’t the same.”
When attending an in-person event, “you mentally put yourself in a place where being there and participating becomes the absolute priority and your day to day responsibilities take second seat to the learnings, meetings and interaction that comes with your attendance,” said Workman. “The virtual thing changes all that and so far I haven’t seen where this venue is engaging enough for people to shove their day to day off to the side to take advantage of the substitution.”
Executives at Copilot, a customer experience platform company, were surprised by the timing of the CES announcement but not CTA’s decision to go virtual with CES 2021, co-CEO Tsiki Naftaly told us. The last CES was one of the best conferences Copilot ever took part in, he said.
Copilot was looking forward to CES 2021, said Naftaly. He was arguing with his CTA sales contact as recently as Monday, demanding a better booth location “in the middle of the smart house section,” he said. The contact informed him Tuesday morning of the decision taking CES 2021 virtual, he said. Naftaly and his co-CEO Zvi Frank, fearful that COVID-19 was putting CES 2021 in jeopardy, decided two weeks ago to hold off booking Las Vegas flights or hotel, said Frank.
Editor's note: This story is part of an ongoing look at how tech and telecom stakeholders and events are being affected by the pandemic. A news bulletin about CES 2021's cancellation can be found here. It's in front of the pay wall (as is other of our COVID-19 coverage).