NAB: A Veteran Attendee Looks Back… and Ahead
By Keith Lissak for Post Perspective
The 2023 NAB Show wrapped up its 100th anniversary on April 19th, with what NAB says were 65,000 registered attendees and 1,200 exhibitors. While I hadn’t attended the show since 2019, the year before the pandemic, it felt strangely natural to be back at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
I’ve now been to more than 25 NAB shows during my career, which pales in comparison to some industry folks, like Dave Van Hoy, president of post solutions provider Advanced Systems Group, who has been to more than 40 of these events.
What keeps him coming back after all these years? For starters, the change in the scope of NAB, says Van Hoy. “When I went to my first show as a 19-year-old in 1979, it was clearly a broadcast show. The two dominant vendors were RCA and Ampex. SMPTE timecode was brand-new. Minicomputers were controlling tape decks and switchers to perform edits in real time and record on tape decks. It was all about over-the-air and cable. Today, I would call NAB an overarching content creation and distribution show.”
