‘Nothing’s Off the Table’ for CES 2022 Health, Safety Planning, Says Shapiro
Few details are set in stone for CES 2022 with an event that's 11 months out, except for CTA’s public commitment to return to a physical show Jan. 5-8 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, CEO Gary Shapiro told Consumer Electronics Daily. “Nothing’s off the table,” said Shapiro, when we asked if CTA will limit show attendance to crowds smaller than the customary 170,000 or impose COVID-19 vaccine or testing conditions for landing a badge.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
CTA “clearly hasn’t made a decision” about best testing and safety practices for CES 2022, “but we’re trying to figure out the safest way of doing things,” said Shapiro. “If you’ve had a vaccine, or if you’ve had COVID, there’s some level of protection. If you have COVID now, clearly we don’t even want you to get on a plane and come to the event.”
For CES 2022, “we looked at the floor plans and figured out what it is we can and should be doing differently,” said Shapiro. A new LVCC exhibit hall will ease the challenges of spacing exhibit booths farther apart and widening the aisles, he said: “Others will be way ahead of us to figure out some of it.”
It’s “possible” CTA will require proof of a vaccine as a condition for registering for CES 2022, said Shapiro: “A lot of groups are trying to figure that out. You see what others are doing and you get to best practices. A lot of lawyers and HR people are looking at the same questions right now.”
CES 2022 exhibit space became available for booking in October, and 1,000 companies have signed on, said Shapiro, about a quarter of the number that exhibited at CES 2020. “There’s great interest in the show already. People really want to get back.”
Many “variables” are at play in again hosting an in-person CES at the LVCC, said Shapiro. “We don’t know what the international travel situation is going to be then. We also don’t know the desire of human travel. I’ve been on a whole bunch of planes. People are fearful until they actually do it.” Shapiro thinks most people “want to get back to some semblance of normalcy,” he said. “But a certain percentage will never leave their homes again.”
Shapiro doesn’t regret CTA’s public messaging that CES 2021 as an in-person show would go on as planned, days before announcing in late July that it wouldn’t, he said. “Like anything you do in life, you’re going forward until you’re not going forward. If we were to say that we’re looking at our options and we’re thinking of canceling, that would be unusual for anyone to say.”
CTA started talking about CES 2021 contingencies in early February when it first learned of COVID-19 perils beyond China’s borders, said Shapiro. Planning started in early March on a purely digital event, and also a hybrid show featuring physical and virtual components, he said. “As time went on, it became obvious that the virus was not going to go away by itself and there was not going to be a vaccine in time for January that was widely distributed."
“Internal debates” abounded within CTA about how to strategize CES 2021 as an in-person or digital-only event, Shapiro said. He said he himself was “the most realistic of the group” about COVID-19 conditions on the ground and their unfavorable implications for convening large public gatherings. “Other CEOs seemed focused on making their people feel good, including President [Donald] Trump,” he said. “I kept telling everyone the solution was not right around the corner.”
Many senior executives in the CTA membership rank and file “wanted us to go forward” with a physical CES 2021 at the LVCC, “especially at the CEO level,” said Shapiro. But many CEOs also “acknowledged” early on that their employees were reluctant about getting on airplanes to Las Vegas in January with the virus raging as it was in March, April and May, he said: “We knew there were companies that were making major investments in their exhibits and planning their Las Vegas hospitality. But no one had ever canceled an event so many months ahead of time.”
Canceling CES 2021 “financially was a huge hit for us,” said Shapiro, refusing to disclose the damage, except to talk about the impact in headcount terms. “We did have a staff layoff,” he said. “We cut expenses dramatically.” CTA’s current workforce is about 130, compared with 190 pre-pandemic, he said.
Producing CES 2021 “was a first-time process for us,” said Shapiro. “Everyone had to get new skills,” he said. “We made the right decision partnering with Microsoft. They had produced their own events, but they didn’t have exhibitors or registration. They didn’t have all these things to deal with. It took some time to get there, but we really felt good that we went with them.”
Preliminary results show CES 2021 generated more than 1.2 million “leads” collectively for exhibitors, said Shapiro. That’s “gold” for any company investing significant time and money in a major trade show, he said. He admits time will tell how valuable those leads are.
CTA typically holds a meeting on the third day of a physical CES of its 50-member board of industry leaders, said Shapiro. It’s a chance to go around the room and give each member 30 seconds to air what’s on their minds, he said. CTA convened the CES 2021 session as a post-mortem Jan. 28, and the members were “ecstatic” with the virtual show results, he said.