CTA Wants to Set Realistic CES 2022 'Expectations,' Says Shapiro

Registration opens Dec. 9 for the digital component of CES 2022, Jean Foster, CTA senior vice president-marketing and communications, told a virtual media briefing Thursday. All the Jan. 4 media day news conferences will be livestreamed on the digital platform, and available for on-demand playback through the end of January, she said. “A lot” of the CES 2022 conferences, though not all, will also be livestreamed, and those that are not will be recorded onsite, available for playback for nearly a month after the event, said Foster. “The goal is to bring as much of this to you as possible,” she said. “Right now in Las Vegas, masks are required indoors,” said Karen Chupka, CTA executive vice president-CES. “We’re really working through what our protocols are going to be on this, because we know some of this is shifting and this is being driven by local guidelines.” CTA will be “finalizing our guidelines in December, and we’ll make sure that we provide all those details well in advance so that everybody understands clearly what is going to be expected at showtime,” she said. Social distancing measures will be in place “across all of our venues,” said Chupka. There will be wider aisles, plus designated one-way aisles, she said. “We’re also adding extra space between our seats in our keynote rooms and all of our conference venues.” CES imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate early on, and one change to CES 2022 will be the requirement to show a badge to ride the shuttle buses as a means of confirming that an attendee’s vaccination status has been verified, said Chupka. CTA will publish a CES 2022 floor plan at the end of November, she said. CES 2022, like all global trade shows in the current environment, “will be a little bit smaller” in attendee and exhibitor participation than before the pandemic, said CTA President Gary Shapiro. “That’s just expected,” he said. “A lot of people can’t travel or are uncomfortable traveling.” The show “is getting very healthy registrations, but we’ll be lower” than the last pre-pandemic CES in 2020, said Shapiro. “We’re trying to be safe as a show. We want people to be comfortable.” CTA also wants to set realistic “expectations,” he said, “because we’re big as an organization on honesty and transparency and disclosure.”