Vendors Reenergized For NAB Show New York

After successful stints earlier this year at the NAB Show in Las Vegas and IBC in Amsterdam, technology vendors are looking forward to NAB Show New York, which runs Oct. 25-26 at the Javits Center on the west side of Manhattan.

While most vendors view it as a regional show, they still consider NAB Show New York a valuable opportunity to meet with some of their biggest customers given the concentration of major networks and media companies in the NYC metropolitan area. Some even say the show has taken on increased importance as many large media companies have tightened travel budgets, resulting in only senior-level executives making the trip to Vegas in the spring.

Show organizers expect this year’s NAB Show New York to feel much bigger than last year’s edition, which came after a two-year lapse due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Registrations are currently pacing some 40% over 2022, which drew 9,576 attendees and 245 exhibitors. NAB already had 6,000 registrants and 250 exhibitors signed up by early October, says NAB EVP of Business Operations Chris Brown. At the current pace the show is projecting to be similar to 2019 in size, with 12,000 to 13,000 attendees and 275 to 300 exhibitors.

“The attendance number right now looks insanely good, and we seem to be picking up each week on that same pace,” Brown says.

There are about 50 companies that are first-time exhibitors, and some big brands that are returning to the show after a long hiatus including Canon and Avid. Expanding its floor space dramatically is Fujifilm/Fujinon, which had a small presence in previous years but now has a booth almost as big as it does at NAB Las Vegas, showing its entire product line.

That’s because Fujifilm is the anchor exhibitor in the “Photo+Video Lab,” says Brown, a new initiative that brings a heightened focus on photography and ties “to all those folks who work in a hybrid environment these days, working their way up- and downstream and using all forms of image creation.”

Another specialized exhibit area, Cine+Live, highlights the latest digital cinema cameras and explores how they are being used in television production. Introduced last year in partnership with AbelCine, Cine+Live has sessions and demos with SONY VENICE 2, ARRI Alexa 35 and Panasonic AK-PLV 100 cameras along with additional gear from Mark Roberts Motion Control and Vinten and supporting sponsors Fujinon, LUX, Multidyne and Seagate. There is also an Oct. 26 session on “The Making of the HBO Camera Assessment Test (CAS),” with HBO SVP of Production Operations Stephen Beres and DP Suny Behar discussing the history of their sophisticated camera testing.

Conference highlights include a keynote address Oct. 25 on “What’s Next?” in the media industry from producer/actor Evan Shapiro, who will be joined onstage by NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt, and a new “Broadcast Content Summit” on Oct. 26 with sessions aimed at content creators, programmers, talent and station managers. There are also two days of companion programming from TVNewsCheck, with the “TV2025: Monetizing the Future” conference on Oct. 25 and the “Cybersecurity for Broadcasters Retreat” on Oct. 26.

Brown says that NAB Show New York is able to use its location to touch upon areas like advertising and the financial community in ways that NAB Las Vegas can’t. As for broadcast technology, the show is less focused on product introductions and more on implementation, particularly given the “breadth and depth” of the local audience.

“For the big companies, who know the market and are connected with these customers, the opportunity really in New York is to deepen the conversation, to drill down and meet with parts of the team that they may not see in Las Vegas for certain,” Brown says. “Las Vegas is going to draw up to a certain type of person that the budget will allow. So, New York gives the folks that didn’t have the opportunity to get out there a chance to get in and really dig in.”

New York also historically gives travelers a chance to experience some eye-opening hotel prices, an issue that NAB has been working to address by steadily growing its hotel block. Given broad demand for NYC hotels from business and leisure travelers, NAB doesn’t have that much negotiating leverage, Brown says, and “there are still some rates at some of the hotels that can drive you a little bit crazy.” But the block has moderated prices somewhat.

Most vendors are traveling to NAB Show New York with a relatively small team, which helps to mitigate the high hotel costs. Some even stay in New Jersey and commute in to try to manage their expenses.

Van Duke, director of operations for master control vendor Playbox Neo, had previously stayed in New Jersey but this year is staying in Manhattan at a hotel near the Javits Center. He didn’t find the hotel prices to be too onerous compared to the much bigger overall spend for the spring NAB show.

“Versus Vegas, it’s cheap,” says Duke, who notes that he recently closed a deal with local cable network News 12 for the company’s Playbox NEO suite.

Duke was happy with his experience at the 2022 show and considers it worthwhile to make the return trip, a sentiment echoed by other vendors.

“We have newer things to show, and I have people who are already interested in coming by,” he says. “I also have some big project updates in New York, so I’m really looking forward to getting up there.”

Video transport specialist Net Insight had been a longtime NAB Show NY exhibitor but wasn’t sure what to expect at the 2022 edition given the impacts of COVID-19. But the Swedish company was pleasantly surprised, says Per Johansson, head of sales Americas, media networks for Net Insight, and is returning with a seven-person team this year.

“It was tremendous traction,” Johannson says. “I think everyone was happy to see a full-blown trade show again, especially as some of them didn’t make it to NAB at that time as things were still a little restricted, at least from the larger companies. NAB [Show] New York last year was fantastic.”

Appear, a competitor to Net Insight in the video transport space, only attended last year and didn’t exhibit, which it regretted somewhat. The company, which counts Major League Baseball and NBCUniversal among its customers, has a 10×10 booth and is bringing a team of nine including some senior executives from Norway.

“It was a phenomenal show, we had 20-something meetings, and had a really positive experience,” says Ed McGivern, president and GM, Appear U.S. “We were actually quite upset we didn’t have a booth presence.”

Both Johansson and McGivern say NYC hotels are expensive, but not much more so than other big cities where they visit customers like Los Angeles and Miami. And they note that Vegas isn’t as cheap as it once was. Appear was able to secure sub-$400 rooms, compared to perhaps $250 to $275 for Las Vegas.

“We take that as the cost of doing business, and I don’t think it’s preventive,” McGivern says.

News production, playout and streaming vendor Bitcentral was a first-time exhibitor in 2022. Bitcentral COO Sam Peterson was impressed enough with the traffic, particularly from traditional broadcasters interested in the company’s streaming products, that he immediately signed up for 2023 while he was still on the show floor. The company will have six to seven staffers working a 10-foot by 20-foot booth.

“It makes sense to be there,” Peterson says. “Sure, there are people who come in and travel for the show, but for the most part it is a very localized show. It’s not different from Las Vegas, it’s just a much smaller customer set. But it gives us focused time with some customers we might not be able to get in front of otherwise.”

Satoshi Kanemura, president of For-A Americas, agrees that NAB Show New York draws some attendees who don’t make the trip to NAB in Las Vegas. That includes house of worship/church production customers who, along with local stations, are a key target for the high-resolution LED monitors that For-A is selling in partnership with Spanish firm Alfalite.

“I used to think NAB New York is pretty much just broadcasters in the New Jersey, New York area, but a wide variety of people came over to NAB New York [last year],” Kanemura says. “So, it’s very effective for us.”

IP transmission vendor TVU Networks has been a longtime NAB Show New York exhibitor, but this will be the first year that CEO Paul Shen will be attending the show himself. Shen was impressed by the strong turnout at IBC last month, where he says TVU scanned “significantly more” visitors at its IBC booth than it did at NAB 2023 in April (about 30% more, as well as more than it did at IBC 2019).

TVU had a relatively small booth for IBC, because it wasn’t expecting so much traffic, and “was jammed for three days continuously,” Shen says. While it was probably too late to enlarge TVU’s NAB NY booth, he says the company is “revisiting what we are supposed to do moving forward” for both NAB 2024 and IBC 2024 as customers obviously still place a lot of value on in-person meetings.

“We were surprised,” Shen says, noting that NAB is usually “much bigger.”

Shen has always skipped NAB Show New York because of its close timing with IBC. But even though he was already making the long trip to Broadcast India this week, he still thought it was worth hitting New York just two weeks later based on the volume of customer meetings. He expects AI and cloud services will continue to be hot topics.

“I think people are coming back in full speed, and things are getting interesting,” Shen says. “A lot of people have been thinking about a cloud-based media supply chain, and they say, ‘OK, that’s good, but we’re not ready for that yet.’ This time, people are saying, ‘This is what we need, and we want to deploy it as soon as possible.’ They are very open to new approaches, and there are no longer any questions about whether cloud services work.”