If COVID-19 forces major exhibitors to flee the SEMA 2021 automotive and mobile electronics show Nov. 2-6 at the Las Vegas Convention Center as at last month’s CEDIA Expo in Indianapolis (see 2108310057), don’t count Voxx among them, the vendor “reassured” its dealer base Thursday. The past 18 months “have proved challenging for everyone, but we have all persevered and found creative ways to conduct our daily business,” said Senior Vice President Aron Demers. Voxx plans to debut “two years of innovations” at the LVCC since last appearing at an in-person trade event, and “feels it is more important than ever to show our continued support for the show and our customers attending,” he said. Voxx is taking “extra precautions” to safeguard the health and safety of its dealers and employees, he said. “We want to encourage all of our dealers to continue to support the show, come meet with us in our booth, and start to get back to normal.” Voxx didn’t respond to questions Friday about the extra precautions Demers referred to or what provoked him to speak out. Clark County, Nevada, authorities require masks at all indoor public gatherings, said the SEMA 2021 website Friday. “Currently there is no requirement to show proof of vaccination, or a negative COVID-19 test,” to enter the LVCC, “and there is no indication these measures would be in place in November,” it said. CES 2022 at the LVCC follows the event by two months, and will require anyone entering the facility to show proof of full vaccination, defined as a second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna or a single Johnson & Johnson dose at least 14 days before the event. CTA says it’s monitoring Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on boosters but isn’t requiring them.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) extended a telehealth executive order allowing medical providers to do virtual routine and nonemergency medical appointments. Monday’s EO renewed provisions that were to expire Thursday. They will remain in effect until the end of the COVID-19 emergency is declared.
“Ongoing public health requirements” and COVID-19 travel restrictions forced Tesla to convert its Oct. 7 annual meeting to a “virtual-only format,” said the automaker Friday. The online event will originate from Tesla’s Austin “gigafactory.” It said Friday's updates “supersede anything to the contrary” in Tesla’s Aug. 26 proxy statement when the company planned for an in-person meeting at its Fremont, California, plant.
Semicon Taiwan 2021 will convene as an in-person show Dec. 28-30 at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, said organizers Monday. COVID-19 in June forced the postponement of the Sept. 21-23 show to undetermined dates in December or January. Taiwanese authorities “recently relaxed restrictions on social distancing and exhibition size following a successful push to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases,” organizers said. The show is expected to draw more than 550 exhibitors, they said.
Nearly half of U.S. organizations plan to impose COVID-19 vaccine mandates, a Gartner survey found. The research company canvassed 272 legal, compliance and human resources executives Sept. 15, finding 46% plan to require employees to get fully vaccinated, with 17% shunning mandates and the rest not sure. Gartner took the poll days after President Joe Biden announced the Labor Department will develop an emergency rule, under Occupational Safety and Health Administration authority, requiring employees in large companies to show proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test result at least once a week. The new “federal guidance,” plus the “ongoing surge” in the delta variant, “have combined to shift executive opinion on vaccine mandates significantly since the beginning of the year,” said Gartner. “It is likely that we will see a clear majority of firms instituting mandates of some kind by the end of the year, considering that 36% of respondents are still unsure of their organization’s plans.” The polling unearthed “significant concerns” among executives about the “consequences” of new mandates, even as more companies are embracing them more widely, said Gartner. It found seven in 10 respondents expressing fear that mandates “will spur employee turnover due to resignations or terminations,” it said. More than half said they had “general concerns on managing employees who refused the vaccine without an approved exemption,” it said.
Office furniture manufacturer Steelcase abandoned previous expectations that customers were planning to return employees to the physical office “immediately after Labor Day,” said CEO Jim Keane on a call Thursday for fiscal Q2 ended Aug. 27. COVID-19 vaccination rates “plateaued" over the summer, and the delta variant began spreading across the U.S., causing many companies “to delay their plans,” he said. Steelcase has “more confidence now about how the workplace of the future will take shape,” said Keane. “While there are extremes at either end, the mainstream perspective is the office will remain the primary place for work because of the informal interactions critical to productivity, innovation and culture.” Most companies will offer employees a “hybrid work experience,” with occasional remote work, he said. Employers that don’t embrace a hybrid-work model “will struggle to compete for talent,” he said.
Streaming Media West, scheduled for Nov. 1-5 in Huntington Beach, California, was canceled as a physical event and will take place virtually, said organizer Information Today Tuesday, citing "too many obstacles for us to overcome." Reservations made through the official room block will be automatically canceled, it said. The program is here.
CEDIA Expo parent company Emerald has held over 20 in-person trade shows, conferences and other events this year with 30%-70% of pre-COVID-19 attendance levels, said the events company Monday. “As expected, COVID-related issues such as international travel restrictions and date postponements for many Company events have impacted attendance,” it said. A spokesperson told us Monday CEDIA Expo 2021, Sept. 1-3 in Indianapolis, in early summer was on track to draw 10,000 attendees: "When the delta variant came through this year -- we had about 30%-50% of those originally registered attendees come to the show in person." Emerald said last week (see 2109130046) the custom installation industry’s annual trade event drew 82 exhibitors, down from more than 250 that were expected, after concerns about the COVID-19 delta variant caused numerous exhibitor and attendee cancellations. CEDIA Expo had 1,400 verified attendees: 35% first-timers and 58% integrators; 14 countries were represented. Emerald is scheduled to stage “dozens” of events in coming months and looks to return to a full slate in 2022, it said Monday. On its August earnings call, the company (see 2107300061) said it canceled 108 events due to the pandemic, 94 scheduled for 2020, representing $230.6 million of 2019 revenue, and 14 scheduled for this year, representing $71.2 million of revenue. It submitted $167 million in insurance claims for 2020 canceled events and received $121.1 million: $89.2 million last year, $31.9 million this year. It submitted an additional $52.9 million in claims for events not held in first-half 2021 (see 2104300064).
The National Retail Federation will require attendees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 when it returns its annual conference and expo to New York’s Javits Center in January as an in-person event for the first time in two years, said the association Monday. NRF 2022: Retail’s Big Show, set for Jan. 16-18, is expected to draw 30,000 attendees and more than 700 exhibitors. Registrants agree not to hold NRF liable for “any transmission of COVID-19 in connection with Retail’s Big Show,” said NRF. CES 2022 will require attendees to be fully vaccinated when it returns to the Las Vegas Convention Center in early January. NAB Show 2021 had the same policy in place at the same venue, but organizers scrapped the in-person event last week due to spikes in the delta variant (see 2109150064).
Walgreens will pay its full-time pharmacists a one-time $1,250 bonus this month for their efforts to vaccinate the public against COVID-19, said the pharmacy chain Friday. Part-time pharmacists can qualify for a $1,000 bonus, it said. Pharmacy technicians who are certified or become certified to give flu and COVID-19 vaccines will get a $1,000 reward during a six-month “retention period,” it said. It’s also offering a $200 cash incentive to any employee who gets fully vaccinated by Nov. 30, it said.