Only eight days before the 2022 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) takes place in Las Vegas, exhibitors, participants and attendees begin to cancel their trip due to the fear of the fast spreading covid-19 variant Omicron.
And although the official website and social media for CES 2022 still announce that there will be more than 2,100 exhibiting companies “and more to be added”, in addition to opinion leaders, retailers and wholesalers of the technology, the truth is that Lenovo, Microsoft, Google, AT&T, John Deere, TCL, T-Mobile, Twitter, BMW , General Motors, Meta (Facebook) , Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Amazon, Intel, and many other industry majors, announced that they will not attend and are analyzing participating virtually or not at all.
Could CES 2022 be canceled?
Yesterday on the official page of CES 2020, in a statement, the event organizers reported that 42 major technology brands, in total, have canceled, which means less than seven percent of its participants.
They also maintain that key industry audiences are showing strong commitment to the event, mentioning that 195 from the Fortune Global 500, 77 from the Interbrand 100, 66 from the top retailers, major U.S. and global media outlets, and attendees from 159 countries are already registered to arrive.
Lenovo used its official channel on Twitter to announce from Beijing that “after analyzing all the current possibilities regarding Covid-19, we chose to give a higher priority to the safety of our employees, customers and partners.”
Meta, formerly Facebook, also announced the decision not to attend Las Vegas in order to take care of everyone’s health. “We will keep abreast of the situation and find opportunities to connect with our clients,” Meta posted. Finally, Amazon, reported that the health situation is in uncertainty and they intend to avoid risks, so they would also skip the event this year.
At this point, CES 2022 has not been cancelled and is still scheduled from 5-8 January 2022, but if participants continue to cancel presentations they could either cancel the whole event or take the digital route some other big conventions have used during the pandemic. As to what will happen next is mere speculation.
What are your thoughts on this? Should CES 2022 be canceled or should they do the whole event online?