The Covid-19 pandemic is still having quite an effect on major conferences. This week alone, T-Mobile, Amazon, Meta, Twitter, Pinterest, and iHeartRadio have all announced that they won’t attend CES 2022. This is in light of a new wave of COVID-19 cases in the US, making things even harder for the annual Las Vegas tech expo.
T-Mobile CEO and one of the CES featured speakers announced that his company won’t be attending the show. Amazon is also in the same boat and won’t be attending the show in person this year.
The absence of companies like Twitter and Meta won’t hurt that much as they have a more silent presence on the show. On the other hand, T-Mobile is the first major attendee to bail.
CES 2022 Problems
Many tech publications have also decided not to attend the event, including The Verge, CNET, Engadget, TechCrunch, TechRadar, and Tom’s Guide.
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which runs CES, stated that it still plans to host an in-person show. CES 2022 will host more than 1,800 companies from 5-8 January. Last year, the event was completely virtual, negating any pandemic risk.
“At this point, we’re very much focused on having this show and doing it safely and putting the right protocols in place to ensure that people feel comfortable with it,” a CTA spokesperson told Adweek.
Many companies are planning to have a limited presence on the show floor. LG will not have a traditional booth and will use QR codes and AR to show off its products. Nvidia is also planning a virtual-only keynote.
Sony, Samsung, and Google are playing it safe and listed as “monitoring local conditions,” giving them an easy way out. We can only hope that CES 2022 doesn’t turn out like other events in the covid era with major companies bailing out and the event getting canceled.
