Attendees of this year’s NAB Show will see the industry’s evolution not just in the technologies on display, but in the show itself.
This year’s edition, set for April 18–22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, reflects that forward momentum with a new logo designed to better represent the diverse community of content creators it serves and with a venue that has just completed a sweeping $600 million renovation.
NAB Show also continues to evolve as a hub for industry collaboration. Post-show data indicates that $17 billion in business is generated annually through relationships formed at NAB Show, according to Karen Chupka, executive vice president of NAB Global Connections and Events. She spoke with the NAB Show Daily about what makes it an industry gathering point.
NAB Show Daily: How will this year’s event reflect what you’ve described as the “evolution of storytelling?”
KC: When I first started coming to NAB Show, the conversation was largely about broadcast technology and television infrastructure. That’s still incredibly important, but the world of media has grown well beyond those boundaries.
Today, you have creators building global audiences from their studios or even their homes. Major sports leagues are operating their own media platforms. Brands and enterprises are producing high-quality video at scale. Streaming platforms have become central to how audiences discover and watch content.
The show reflects that shift. This year you’ll see an expanded Creator Lab, a four-day Sports Summit and a growing presence from companies focused on streaming and cloud-based workflows. Artificial intelligence will also be highly visible, with roughly twice as many AI-focused exhibitors as last year.
All of that speaks to how the tools and the people involved in storytelling continue to evolve.
Daily: The new logo and refreshed branding suggest a more expansive vision. What does this new visual identity represent about where NAB Show is headed?
KC: The visual update certainly modernizes the look, but the real purpose was alignment with where the industry is today. NAB Show has grown into a gathering place for the entire storytelling economy, not just one sector of it. The new identity signals that broader role.
Daily: How does having a completed Las Vegas Convention Center campus enable you to think differently about the show’s future?
KC: Instead of thinking about the show as a series of disconnected halls, we can think about it as a more cohesive environment where communities, technologies and ideas flow together.
That allows us to create stronger hubs for sectors like broadcast, sports, creators and enterprise media while still encouraging people to explore outside their traditional areas. Tools like our new and improved NAB Show app also help reinforce that experience by making it easier for attendees to navigate the campus, discover sessions and connect with exhibitors in real time.
Daily: How important is creating a more consistent “home” for communities at the show in reinforcing its long-term identity?
KC: Physical space matters more than people sometimes realize. NAB Show brings together tens of thousands of professionals from across the media landscape, and many arrive looking for the conversations most relevant to their field.
Creating recognizable environments helps anchor those communities. Places like Creator Lab, the Sports Theater and TV and Radio HQ give people a natural focal point for conversations within their sector.
They’re complemented by spaces like the NAB Member Lounge and the Networking Lounge in Creator Lab, where attendees can step away from the aisles to talk with peers, meet new collaborators or connect during more informal moments like meetups and happy hours.
Daily: AI is clearly reshaping the industry. How do you see NAB Show positioning itself in relation to AI — as a showcase, a convener, a translator?
KC: First, NAB Show is a place where the technology is actually demonstrated. … We’ve doubled our AI presence this year with two dedicated AI Pavilions featuring more than 50 exhibitors, with several more in the Startup Pavilion, and roughly 300 companies across the show are highlighting work in areas related to AI.
But the show also serves as a meeting point for the people trying to apply those tools in real production environments. Engineers, creators and executives are all asking the same practical questions about how AI fits into existing infrastructure, how it affects business models and how it should be deployed responsibly.
Daily: How do you balance honoring the show’s broadcast heritage with attracting newer audiences, like creators and enterprise brands?
KC: Broadcast is still the foundation of NAB Show and always will be. Many of the standards, workflows and technical innovations that power the industry today were built by the broadcast community.
At the same time, the media landscape has changed dramatically. Creators are building businesses around their content. Brands are producing sophisticated video for marketing and communications, reflected in the show’s new Enterprise Video Strategies track. Sports leagues have become major media platforms in their own right.
The interesting thing is that these groups increasingly rely on many of the same tools and infrastructure. NAB Show brings them together so they can learn from one another.
Daily: Enterprise video production is now a larger part of the conversation. What does that say about the changing definition of “media?”
KC: Enterprise participation reflects how central video has become to modern communication. Many large organizations now operate internal media teams that produce everything from marketing campaigns to training content and live events. Those teams face many of the same challenges as traditional media companies: producing high-quality content efficiently, managing large libraries of assets and distributing material across multiple platforms.
Daily: Attendance is tracking strongly, and international participation remains broad. What do you think is driving that momentum?
KC: Companies across the world are navigating major shifts in technology, distribution and business models. … The global nature of the industry also plays a role. This year, we’re expecting roughly 60,000 attendees from about 160 countries, with more than 20% of registrations coming from outside the United States. We’re also projecting around 1,100 exhibitors, including about 125 first-time companies.
Daily: How do you expect the show, and its brand, to keep evolving?
KC: Over the next several years, I expect the show to continue integrating areas that were once treated separately: technology, production, distribution and the business side of media. Artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure and new distribution models will likely play an even larger role, and sectors like sports media and the creator economy will keep growing in importance.
What won’t change is the core purpose of the show: bringing the global storytelling community together to explore how content is created, delivered and experienced. As the industry becomes more complex, that shared meeting place becomes even more valuable.
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