7 ms·

The NAB show 2020 (April 18 - 22, Las Vegas) is still holding out, "The Show is On. Stay Informed.": https://nabshow.com/2020/attend/onsite-services/coronavirus

by w-m 7y ago

The NAB show 2020 (April 18 - 22, Las Vegas) is still holding out, "The Show is On. Stay Informed.": https://nabshow.com/2020/attend/onsite-services/coronavirus-update-and-resources/ https://nabshow.com/2020/attend/onsite-services/coronavirus-... I wonder how many more days until they cancel as well. We have booked a stand and are planning to show a demo. Flights and hotels are booked. It feels slightly weird working on the demo, with the very high chance of it not happening after all.

allovernow 7y ago
Honestly at this point the socially responsible thing to do is not to attend, regardless of whether they cancel or not. You are not just putting yourself at risk by attending. We all must take steps to combat the spread. But I don't envy your position, I know these are tough calls to make.
- behringer 7y ago
  As an organizer of a very small event coming up in mid April, I'm terrified of the flu ransacking our group and killing some of our members many of whom are straight up sick and elderly. We're giving guidance to stay home if they're at risk, but I know if we have the show they'll be there. If we cancel the show it'll be devastating in other ways, and our group is overall conservative and fiercely advocates personal responsibility. Needless to say, if we cancel it will possibly implode the group or cause similar clubs to take over a 30 year tradition. What do I do?
  - kyleee 7y ago
    The responsible thing to do is cancel, even though I know you're feeling damned if you do.
  - jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
    I suggest waiting a few days if you can and then cancel. News will be way worse than now, which allows you to excuse yourself better.
  - hrayr 7y ago
    I work on a virtual conference platform, we've had significant increase in interest in the last couple months... you might want to look into hosting a virtual conference to uphold your tradition and be responsible at the same time.
    - behringer 7y ago
      We will be teleconferencing. Perhaps I will advertise that option more.
  - FriendlyNormie 7y ago
    Simple. You ignore the lunatics telling you to cancel.
  - iokanuon 7y ago
    There's a third option, postpone it a couple months.
    - behringer 7y ago
      Not viable imo. There's likely no cure coming this year. In a couple months the virus will be more disbursed and pose an even greater threat of transmission to our attendees that are old or sick and refuse to stay home.
      - davidw 7y ago
        You could say "let's try in August" and if warm weather has positive effects, then I guess it goes ahead, or if not, you just flat out cancel. It's irresponsible to hold events right now.
        lostlogin 7y ago
        The warm weather thing keeps coming up. Sure it’ll be warm where most the population is, but the other half of the world is going into winter.
        davidw 7y ago
        No one really knows if it has any effect anyway, yet, from what I can tell.
        chasd00 7y ago
        shouldn't we be able to tell from countries on the equator? Or is too early to tell?
        acwan93 7y ago
        That’s what we’re doing with an event originally scheduled for May. We’re postponing until September and hoping for positive news over the summer.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Call the local jurisdiction where your event is being held and 'ask' them if you should cancel it. 'If' they say yes, then call your insurer.
    - harambaebae69 7y ago
      Love the quotes on this. Those individuals you're asking are guaranteed to be risk averse from a game theory perspective, rightly or wrongly (probably rightly here).
  - ncallaway 7y ago
    Take a look at the Biogen conference. 70 of 92 coronavirus cases in MA are linked to the employees of that company, and the conference is thought to have been a major vector [1]. Ask yourself if that's a risk you're welling to take having been associated with that conference. I think event organizers are in a particularly brutal position. I know that the credibility and finances of a lot of events are on a thread, and that cancellation can crush the event (even in the future). It's a tough decision. Were it me, I would cancel, because I think it's the responsible thing to do. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/11/health/coronavirus-massachusetts-state-of-emergency/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/11/health/coronavirus-massachuse...
    - gist 7y ago
      > Ask yourself if that's a risk you're welling to take having been associated with that conference. This seems to be as if making a choice between what actually might be good and how something might impact you personally (psychologically or otherwise). It's the difference between thinking 'I could never live with myself if that carnival amusement ride killed a child' vs. 'I'd hate to have a child killed on that carnival ride'. Not criticism of what you are saying - just pointing this out.
      - ncallaway 7y ago
        Totally fair, I went back and forth on the wording a few times, and never felt like I got it quite right. I didn't want to come across as saying "You will have blood on your wants if you do this", but I think there is a risk that there will be blood on the hands of event organizers. I guess I didn't know how to frame it other than "are you willing to risk this outcome?"
        tomcam 7y ago
        I'll back you on your wording. Made perfect sense to me and I'm right at Ground Zero (Redmond, WA) of the US outbreak and in the high risk cohort (old, fat, diabetic). These decisions have to be made as you've phrased it.
  - gowld 7y ago
    Surely a group of conservative old, wise people who advocate personal responsibility would all choose not to attend an event while a novel virus is spreading around the world? Ask for updated RSVPs, and when you see 0 plan to attend your event nor any alternative, cancel this year's live event.
    - behringer 7y ago
      In an effort to try not to be too political, not all conservatives are always capable of making the best personally responsible choices... But where I stand on that is that's their problem, not mine. At the same time as the lead organizer I don't want their blood on my hands. It's a conundrum for sure. I liked one of these other posters that said to wait for things to get worse and then cancel haha.
- beamatronic 7y ago
  The same thing is true of going to work.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    The risk model is different based on a lot of varieties. If you're working in an office in an unaffected area, nobody is traveling and there's no high risk, it's not necessarily a big deal. If you're in a major corporation and your coworkers fly all over creation - then yeah, time to start feigning a cough and taking a few sickdays to work at home.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Which is why many companies are encouraging their employees to work from home when possible.
    - beamatronic 7y ago
      Not nearly enough. Some are resisting for no apparent reason. (no technical reason) Which puts you, the employee, in the position of deciding whether you are going to defy them, or not.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    I started working from home yesterday. But traveling to conference is worse than just going to your office.
andybak 7y ago
My work consists of several things based around events (a website and planning a workshop/performance). Pretty sure none of those are going to happen. Neither is the wedding I got invited to yesterday - or probably the dinner invite for 3 weeks from now. I'm not sure what to say to people who are involving me in their plans for April and May...
- davidw 7y ago
  In Italy, all weddings and funerals have been shut down until at least April 3rd. It's the sensible thing to do https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ https://www.flattenthecurve.com/
- jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
  Well, the truth: that you will be glad to attend if things get better, but that most likely they won't.
ls612 7y ago
I honestly see no reason for events that far out to cancel today. It does seem likely that they will have to do so eventually but they don't have to commit to that until the end of the month.
- adamnemecek 7y ago
  People are buying tickets right now and it's irresponsible to be selling them.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    No it's not. As of now the show is on so they're selling valid tickets. If they do cancel then they'll refund the cost.
    - TrueGeek 7y ago
      But what about the cost of the booths, the displays, the printed material, the plane tickets, the hotel rooms? Months of planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars goes into an NAB vendor booth.
      - manigandham 7y ago
        That’s on the attendees. Random events happen. It’s no different than a sudden earthquake ruining plans. Doesn’t mean the conference is at fault.
    - walls 7y ago
      > If they do cancel then they'll refund the cost. Several major events have 'cancelled' this year by 'postponing' it until next year, giving no refunds. I wouldn't count on that being true.
    - frosted-flakes 7y ago
      Plane tickets, too. Can those be refunded?
tdhoot 7y ago
On the website it says: > NAB has been monitoring the evolving situation on coronavirus both in the U.S. and around the globe. Due to the public health emergency we are currently facing, we believe that it is not possible to move forward with NAB Show as planned. Please see below for a message from NAB’s president and CEO Gordon H. Smith, along with some FAQs about the decision. So I guess 0 days!
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  More concisely: https://nabshow.com/2020/ https://nabshow.com/2020/ > An Update On 2020 NAB Show > NAB Show will not take place this April in Las Vegas For a media event they really need to work on their messaging.
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    Maybe this is the media equivalent of having half a dozen CS PhDs standing around a computer trying to get the projector working.
- w-m 7y ago
  Oh, wow, interesting timing. I guess I'll call it a day then with my work on the demo, and head home...
- simias 7y ago
  So no more hourly spam from shady orgs trying to sell me a list of attendees? Nooooo...
cjensen 7y ago
EDIT: NAB is Official Postponed now [1]. I got the email right after hitting send on this. [1] https://nabshow.com/2020/attend/onsite-services/coronavirus-update-and-resources/ https://nabshow.com/2020/attend/onsite-services/coronavirus-... I'm in the industry. Many of our most important customers have already announced they are not going. The company I work for has pulled out of the show, along with many others. The company I work for believes the show will be cancelled, so better to cancel flights and hotels now than later. My bet is that like a lot of shows, they have a ton of money on the line. Their insurance/cancellation policies only kick in if the government steps in a says "you may not do this," so they are waiting for that to happen. Nevada is tourist-driven, so they don't want to do it. We need some leadership from the Executive Branch.
anigbrowl 7y ago
The logic behind this is that if the organizer cancels the event unilaterally, it's on the hook for the whole cost and might go bankrupt. If they are ordered to cancel by a local authority, they can invoke the force majeure clause in their business insurance and mitigate the loss. If they don't keep up a happy face until they are ordered to cancel, they could in turn be sued by contractors who end up holding the economic bag and argue that the event organizers chose to upset the applecart when they didn't have to. .
- gist 7y ago
  Other option is given that less time to cancel could mean higher losses is to come to an agreement with the insurer to agree to cover prior to government authorities cancelling based on likely possibility of that happening.
- 205guy 7y ago
  I will point out that the city or town officials (mayor or health inspectors) are in the same boat. Do they wait and see how things progress, or do they issue that declaration and forego lots of event revenue and business. Except their decision is the official one on which all these insurance claims will be based. Not easy either, and yeah, they’re supposed to be the authority, but they’re also just people struggling with these momentous decisions as well.
- athenot 7y ago
  I thought many insurance policies specifically excluded force majeure from coverage.
vondur 7y ago
It looks like NAB was just cancelled.
- wcfields 7y ago
  They just tweeted it about 20 minutes ago [1] [1] https://twitter.com/NABShow/status/1237801294246694912 https://twitter.com/NABShow/status/1237801294246694912
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
venkat1017 7y ago
This also got cancelled it seems.
nso 7y ago
We were crunching to get some core features done for a demo at what for us would have been a huge deal conference, and then last week they cancelled it. It was both a feeling of relief and disappointment

by w-m 7y ago

allovernow 7y ago

Honestly at this point the socially responsible thing to do is not to attend, regardless of whether they cancel or not. You are not just putting yourself at risk by attending. We all must take steps to combat the spread. But I don't envy your position, I know these are tough calls to make.

behringer 7y ago
As an organizer of a very small event coming up in mid April, I'm terrified of the flu ransacking our group and killing some of our members many of whom are straight up sick and elderly. We're giving guidance to stay home if they're at risk, but I know if we have the show they'll be there. If we cancel the show it'll be devastating in other ways, and our group is overall conservative and fiercely advocates personal responsibility. Needless to say, if we cancel it will possibly implode the group or cause similar clubs to take over a 30 year tradition. What do I do?
- kyleee 7y ago
  The responsible thing to do is cancel, even though I know you're feeling damned if you do.
- jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
  I suggest waiting a few days if you can and then cancel. News will be way worse than now, which allows you to excuse yourself better.
- hrayr 7y ago
  I work on a virtual conference platform, we've had significant increase in interest in the last couple months... you might want to look into hosting a virtual conference to uphold your tradition and be responsible at the same time.
  - behringer 7y ago
    We will be teleconferencing. Perhaps I will advertise that option more.
- FriendlyNormie 7y ago
  Simple. You ignore the lunatics telling you to cancel.
- iokanuon 7y ago
  There's a third option, postpone it a couple months.
  - behringer 7y ago
    Not viable imo. There's likely no cure coming this year. In a couple months the virus will be more disbursed and pose an even greater threat of transmission to our attendees that are old or sick and refuse to stay home.
    - davidw 7y ago
      You could say "let's try in August" and if warm weather has positive effects, then I guess it goes ahead, or if not, you just flat out cancel. It's irresponsible to hold events right now.
      - lostlogin 7y ago
        The warm weather thing keeps coming up. Sure it’ll be warm where most the population is, but the other half of the world is going into winter.
        davidw 7y ago
        No one really knows if it has any effect anyway, yet, from what I can tell.
        chasd00 7y ago
        shouldn't we be able to tell from countries on the equator? Or is too early to tell?
      - acwan93 7y ago
        That’s what we’re doing with an event originally scheduled for May. We’re postponing until September and hoping for positive news over the summer.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Call the local jurisdiction where your event is being held and 'ask' them if you should cancel it. 'If' they say yes, then call your insurer.
  - harambaebae69 7y ago
    Love the quotes on this. Those individuals you're asking are guaranteed to be risk averse from a game theory perspective, rightly or wrongly (probably rightly here).
- ncallaway 7y ago
  Take a look at the Biogen conference. 70 of 92 coronavirus cases in MA are linked to the employees of that company, and the conference is thought to have been a major vector [1]. Ask yourself if that's a risk you're welling to take having been associated with that conference. I think event organizers are in a particularly brutal position. I know that the credibility and finances of a lot of events are on a thread, and that cancellation can crush the event (even in the future). It's a tough decision. Were it me, I would cancel, because I think it's the responsible thing to do. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/11/health/coronavirus-massachusetts-state-of-emergency/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/11/health/coronavirus-massachuse...
  - gist 7y ago
    > Ask yourself if that's a risk you're welling to take having been associated with that conference. This seems to be as if making a choice between what actually might be good and how something might impact you personally (psychologically or otherwise). It's the difference between thinking 'I could never live with myself if that carnival amusement ride killed a child' vs. 'I'd hate to have a child killed on that carnival ride'. Not criticism of what you are saying - just pointing this out.
    - ncallaway 7y ago
      Totally fair, I went back and forth on the wording a few times, and never felt like I got it quite right. I didn't want to come across as saying "You will have blood on your wants if you do this", but I think there is a risk that there will be blood on the hands of event organizers. I guess I didn't know how to frame it other than "are you willing to risk this outcome?"
      - tomcam 7y ago
        I'll back you on your wording. Made perfect sense to me and I'm right at Ground Zero (Redmond, WA) of the US outbreak and in the high risk cohort (old, fat, diabetic). These decisions have to be made as you've phrased it.
- gowld 7y ago
  Surely a group of conservative old, wise people who advocate personal responsibility would all choose not to attend an event while a novel virus is spreading around the world? Ask for updated RSVPs, and when you see 0 plan to attend your event nor any alternative, cancel this year's live event.
  - behringer 7y ago
    In an effort to try not to be too political, not all conservatives are always capable of making the best personally responsible choices... But where I stand on that is that's their problem, not mine. At the same time as the lead organizer I don't want their blood on my hands. It's a conundrum for sure. I liked one of these other posters that said to wait for things to get worse and then cancel haha.
beamatronic 7y ago
The same thing is true of going to work.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  The risk model is different based on a lot of varieties. If you're working in an office in an unaffected area, nobody is traveling and there's no high risk, it's not necessarily a big deal. If you're in a major corporation and your coworkers fly all over creation - then yeah, time to start feigning a cough and taking a few sickdays to work at home.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Which is why many companies are encouraging their employees to work from home when possible.
  - beamatronic 7y ago
    Not nearly enough. Some are resisting for no apparent reason. (no technical reason) Which puts you, the employee, in the position of deciding whether you are going to defy them, or not.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  I started working from home yesterday. But traveling to conference is worse than just going to your office.

andybak 7y ago

My work consists of several things based around events (a website and planning a workshop/performance). Pretty sure none of those are going to happen. Neither is the wedding I got invited to yesterday - or probably the dinner invite for 3 weeks from now. I'm not sure what to say to people who are involving me in their plans for April and May...

davidw 7y ago
In Italy, all weddings and funerals have been shut down until at least April 3rd. It's the sensible thing to do https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ https://www.flattenthecurve.com/
jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
Well, the truth: that you will be glad to attend if things get better, but that most likely they won't.

ls612 7y ago

I honestly see no reason for events that far out to cancel today. It does seem likely that they will have to do so eventually but they don't have to commit to that until the end of the month.

adamnemecek 7y ago
People are buying tickets right now and it's irresponsible to be selling them.
- manigandham 7y ago
  No it's not. As of now the show is on so they're selling valid tickets. If they do cancel then they'll refund the cost.
  - TrueGeek 7y ago
    But what about the cost of the booths, the displays, the printed material, the plane tickets, the hotel rooms? Months of planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars goes into an NAB vendor booth.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      That’s on the attendees. Random events happen. It’s no different than a sudden earthquake ruining plans. Doesn’t mean the conference is at fault.
  - walls 7y ago
    > If they do cancel then they'll refund the cost. Several major events have 'cancelled' this year by 'postponing' it until next year, giving no refunds. I wouldn't count on that being true.
  - frosted-flakes 7y ago
    Plane tickets, too. Can those be refunded?

tdhoot 7y ago

On the website it says: > NAB has been monitoring the evolving situation on coronavirus both in the U.S. and around the globe. Due to the public health emergency we are currently facing, we believe that it is not possible to move forward with NAB Show as planned. Please see below for a message from NAB’s president and CEO Gordon H. Smith, along with some FAQs about the decision. So I guess 0 days!

unlinked_dll 7y ago
More concisely: https://nabshow.com/2020/ https://nabshow.com/2020/ > An Update On 2020 NAB Show > NAB Show will not take place this April in Las Vegas For a media event they really need to work on their messaging.
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  Maybe this is the media equivalent of having half a dozen CS PhDs standing around a computer trying to get the projector working.
w-m 7y ago
Oh, wow, interesting timing. I guess I'll call it a day then with my work on the demo, and head home...
simias 7y ago
So no more hourly spam from shady orgs trying to sell me a list of attendees? Nooooo...

cjensen 7y ago

EDIT: NAB is Official Postponed now [1]. I got the email right after hitting send on this. [1] https://nabshow.com/2020/attend/onsite-services/coronavirus-update-and-resources/ https://nabshow.com/2020/attend/onsite-services/coronavirus-... I'm in the industry. Many of our most important customers have already announced they are not going. The company I work for has pulled out of the show, along with many others. The company I work for believes the show will be cancelled, so better to cancel flights and hotels now than later. My bet is that like a lot of shows, they have a ton of money on the line. Their insurance/cancellation policies only kick in if the government steps in a says "you may not do this," so they are waiting for that to happen. Nevada is tourist-driven, so they don't want to do it. We need some leadership from the Executive Branch.

anigbrowl 7y ago

The logic behind this is that if the organizer cancels the event unilaterally, it's on the hook for the whole cost and might go bankrupt. If they are ordered to cancel by a local authority, they can invoke the force majeure clause in their business insurance and mitigate the loss. If they don't keep up a happy face until they are ordered to cancel, they could in turn be sued by contractors who end up holding the economic bag and argue that the event organizers chose to upset the applecart when they didn't have to. .

gist 7y ago
Other option is given that less time to cancel could mean higher losses is to come to an agreement with the insurer to agree to cover prior to government authorities cancelling based on likely possibility of that happening.
205guy 7y ago
I will point out that the city or town officials (mayor or health inspectors) are in the same boat. Do they wait and see how things progress, or do they issue that declaration and forego lots of event revenue and business. Except their decision is the official one on which all these insurance claims will be based. Not easy either, and yeah, they’re supposed to be the authority, but they’re also just people struggling with these momentous decisions as well.
athenot 7y ago
I thought many insurance policies specifically excluded force majeure from coverage.

vondur 7y ago

It looks like NAB was just cancelled.

wcfields 7y ago
They just tweeted it about 20 minutes ago [1] [1] https://twitter.com/NABShow/status/1237801294246694912 https://twitter.com/NABShow/status/1237801294246694912

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

venkat1017 7y ago

This also got cancelled it seems.

nso 7y ago

We were crunching to get some core features done for a demo at what for us would have been a huge deal conference, and then last week they cancelled it. It was both a feeling of relief and disappointment