The other day, our facility engineer was telling me about his experience booking a hotel room in Vegas for NAB this year. Apparently, the hotels and casinos in Sin City are hurting. He told me he was able to book a hotel room through our corporate travel system at the MGM Grand for less than $100 a night.
That, coupled with the fact that Apple and Avid stayed away last year, and who knows who's staying away this year, leads me to believe that (1) NAB is going to start dwindling away into irrelevance, or (2) those of us not in broadcasting are finding better uses for our money. Or, and probably more accurate, (3) Vegas is desperate.
I've traveled to Vegas numerous times, three times for NAB and the rest for video assignments, and it always amazed me how willing people were to part with more of their hard-earned cash than seemed appropriate. And I'm not talking about the casinos. Who in their right mind would pay $10 for a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese combo? (Well, apparently I did, but does that mean I was in my right mind?)
In addition, after each NAB show that I attended, I usually came away with perhaps a half-dozen little gadgets that would help in terms of workflow, storage, or archiving - but very little in terms of actual production. And perhaps that's because the Avid, Apple, and Sony booths were always so crowded. Maybe that's because I didn't look hard enough, but anybody who has fought 50,000 people on the convention center floor just to peer over somebody else's shoulder and catch every fourth word of a presentation knows what I'm talking about.
Although our new facility is finalized, our engineer is still going to NAB, perhaps to try and discern the next new trend, or stay ahead of things digital-video-wise. But I'm wondering if it's even worth going, because a lot of what can be discerned at NAB can be found on the web, and for so much less cost. If you're a broadcaster, there's probably still reason to go, to find the latest Gentner products, or new sat trucks, or Yagi antennas, or the like. But with those exceptions, I question whether NAB will continue to be relevant in the new, tapeless, digital future.
Posted by: Dan Dennis on Feb 18, 2009 at 5:48:06 am
I don't know what the folks at Creative Cow were thinking, but letting just anybody have a blog...bad juju, mon. :-)
A little about myself - I'm a producer/director/editor/writer/voice-talent/videographer/compositor/graphic-designer/chief-cook-and-bottle-washer for a manufacturing company in Texas. (And we'll leave it at that.) I've been doing this since Sony BVU-110s were in vogue (and I was just barely strong enough to carry one), and, like you, I've seen a lot of changes in the video/broadcast world, and the world in general. My, it's been a strange 30 years or so, hasn't it?
I'm currently learning my way around Final Cut Pro, just when I thought I had the Avid Media Composer licked. But as I read somewhere, if you can learn one system, you can learn them all. So I am. I'm also learning a lot about Adobe After Effects, and I feel my brain expanding with each new day. (Or maybe that's just a sinus headache.)
Anyway, I've made use of the collective brainpower available at the Cow, and I'm hopeful that I've got some knowledge that might be helpful for some poor, lost soul.
But a blog? In the wrong hands, that can be a dangerous weapon, or merely a waste of words and bandwidth. Or it can be a force for good in the world. My guess is, this will fall somewhere short of the latter, and probably closer to the former. But, here goes nothin'!
