More than a year following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, in-person meetings are on the rebound. In late August, 30,000 masked attendees gathered in Las Vegas for ASD Market Week, a retail trade show. In Chicago, the Black Women’s Expo recently held the largest event in its history, with 432 vendors and thousands of masked attendees. Still, it could be several years — if ever — before conferences attract the crowds they did before the pandemic.
With vaccination levels approaching 70% of the adult population, several cable and broadcast conventions, including NAB, CES and SCTE, are planning on making the 2021 slate at least partly an in-person experience for the first time since 2019.
Five trade-show industry leaders say Las Vegas’ reign as the country’s No. 1 convention city could be over if it doesn’t deliver on the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s promise of expanding and overhauling the existing 3.2 million-square-foot Las Vegas Convention Center campus. It’s a program that has been on the drawing board since 2006 when the LVCVA’s board of directors created a Master Plan Expansion Program to address refurbishing the tired facility and building new amenities to expand and modernize its assets.
