The National Association of Broadcasters said it has done research that shows there is growing sense that the 2021 NAB Show could be an in-person convention this October.
Not surprisingly, NAB said that the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 will be the biggest influencer (for three in five respondents) in whether to attend an in-person event.
NAB is already doing its part to make sure as many of those attendees and others can and will get the vaccine, creating an online toolkit to help journalists educate the public about the importance of getting vaccinated.
Also Read: NAB Offers COVID-19 Vaccine Messaging Toolkit
Due to the pandemic, NAB held the 2020 convention virtually and pushed back the 2021 show (originally scheduled for April 11-13) to Oct. 9-13 in hopes of being able to get together more than virtually.
According to a Freeman Event Research trade show industry research project, a majority of past NAB attendees said they expected to attend in-person events if they were scheduled in late 2021 and 88% said they are likely to return to in-person shows once the virus threat is mitigated, though about 60% of respondents said they expect virtual components will have an increased role in trade shows and live events going forward.
Also Read: NAB Joins COVID-19 Collaborative
NAB has created online platform NAB Amplify as a year-round platform to connect the NAB Show "community.
Freeman surveyed almost 1,000 past NAB Show attendees between Nov. 9 and 16, 2020. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percent.
