Trade Show Diaries: Part 3 – From Amsterdam to Vegas
This blog was written by Harry McCombe, Business Growth Executive.
From Amsterdam to New York to Las Vegas
As I’m stuck here in Chicago O’Hare Airport with a canceled flight and another hour until my plane to London, I’ve got some time to kill. So why not reflect on my first NAB Show and my first visit to the city of Las Vegas? With two IBC Shows under my belt, as well as NAB Show New York, I felt ready to tackle one of the biggest trade-show in the industry, NAB Show, hosted in the luxurious yet brazen city of Las Vegas.
While I have spent the last three years helping my team prepare for previous NAB Shows, I was excited that I would be able to witness first-hand what we’ve spent months preparing for. Additionally, this NAB Show in particular was different to previous years. With the opening of our Portland office last year and growth of our North American team, M2A was preparing for a bigger show than ever before. While we, as a company, have established ourselves as pioneers in cloud-based broadcast within the UK and EMEA, our growing presence in North America was only going to be heightened by NAB 2024.
Day 1: The Opening Day
New to NAB Show this year was M2A’s ‘News in the Cloud’ solution. An exciting additional offer, alongside our work in live sports and entertainment events, our news solution takes learnings from our work with premier sports brands to deliver cost efficient cloud orchestration of video resources at scale to news broadcasters and station groups.
The first day of the show was as hectic as I anticipated. I found myself morphing from one role to another, juggling between technical support at our two demo pods and playing cameraman to capture the product innovations my colleagues shared, all to boost our brand presence. Interestingly, 54% of all attendees this year were experiencing NAB for the first time, and so having a strong brand presence at the show was key to generating as many walk-ups as possible. Furthermore, continuing on our great relationship with AWS, M2A was featured as part of AWS and NVIDIA’s NAB Show LIVE News Desk. News gathering in the cloud was a hot topic at NAB this year, providing a great opportunity to showcase how our M2A CONNECT product can empower news organisations to streamline the management and re-routing of live streams. The evening was a continuation of the day’s intensity, ending with a client dinner at a traditional American steakhouse which sent me straight to bed.
Day 2: Getting Used To The Vegas Lifestyle
The second day of the NAB Show continued to be as busy as the first, if not busier. My schedule was packed with more client meetings, each one an opportunity to showcase our latest offerings and strengthen our industry connections. The afternoon brought a change of pace with various happy hours, providing a more relaxed environment to network and discuss potential collaborations. To round the evening off, I joined two of my English colleagues to venture out to a quintessentially American experience, In-N-Out Burger, a fast-food chain I’d heard so much about (the burgers exceeded my expectations). After a long day and a satisfying meal, I decided to turn in early to recharge for the final stretch of the conference.
Day 3: Feeling Refreshed
Waking up refreshed from an early night, I was ready to tackle the third and final day of the NAB Show with renewed energy. Just like the first two days, our schedule was packed with back-to-back meetings. Many of these were centered around our new Workflow Orchestration feature, designed to help operators easily provision and monitor live video workflows, and our new Capture Editor clipping tool, tailored for broadcasters and rights-holders needing efficient, high-quality clipping of live video content.
As the day came to a close, we celebrated a successful NAB Show, reflecting on the productive days we’d had and looking forward to the future opportunities our efforts would hopefully bring.
Day 4: The Final Stretch
By Tuesday, the final day, I was running on fumes but kept pushing through—from long hours on the show floor to after-hours happy hours and client dinners, I was giving NAB Show my all. Even the final day, which I learned is (incorrectly) known as ‘Vendor Day’, proved to be just as busy as the rest, with more meetings and walk-ups.
All in all, my first dive into the NAB Show scene was everything I hoped for and more. It’s back to London now to catch up on sleep and start prepping for IBC. Can’t wait to showcase what we’ll be up to in Amsterdam!
