Several big brands have pulled out of CES as Omicron becomes a big problem for the global US tech event.
In Australia Qantas has told passengers that they now must get $149 International COVID test 24 hours prior to flying instead of three days prior.
Several big brands have told ChannelNews that they are now looking at major Video presentations for media organisations with several big technology and new product announcements due in January which ChannelNews will cover.
Graphics chip giant Nvidia, JPMorgan and PepsiCo have all confirmed that they are bowing out of in-person CES events. Meta, Twitter, Pinterest and iHeartMedia also have said they won’t attend.
Samsung Australia who was originally going to send people to the event have cancelled trips to the Las Vegas event.
“Nvidia cancelling on CES is like Moderna cancelling at a healthcare conference,” one person close to the conference told News Corp in the USA, underlining the darkening outlook after the exhibitor cancelled last year’s event.
Organisers of the event have told ChannelNews that the event is going to happen — in-person — Jan. 5 to 8.
The last time the event happened in-person was in January 2020 and ChannelNews was there.
Several Australians attending the event believe “They dodged a bullet” as thousands of attendee’s canes from China and Wuhan where COVID first broke out.
One Samsung Australia executive who attended the event was “seriously ill” with a fever which some now believe was COVID.
The event typically draws more than 175,000 people to the event.
At this year’s show LG, Samsung and Panasonic as well as Harman International and Melbourne based Cygnett are set to make major announcements at the show.
Journalists from CNN, The Verge, Forbes, MarketWatch, Engadget, TechCrunch and The New York Times’ Wirecutter have all pulled out of attending the event live.
“If you have a big booth, you have that, so journalists write about it,” tech publicist Ed Zitron told On The Money in the USA. “At this point, what are they selling their booth owners?”
“I think the show floor is going to be a very strange ghost town,” Zitron added. “They should’ve cancelled already and every day they don’t cancel makes it more expensive and annoying.”
Organizers are requiring proof of vaccination for attendees and plan to pass out free rapid coronavirus tests that they “recommend” attendees use before entering events.
Some would-be attendees say the optional testing plan doesn’t go far enough given the current onslaught of coronavirus cases among vaccinated people.
“I read the health-and-safety protocol and went, Nope,” Boost Mobile founder and director Peter Adderton told On the Money. “The whole reason you go to CES is to meet with people. If you can’t do that safely, there’s no reason to go.”
Behind the scenes, executives at the Consumer Technology Association — which organizes CES — are launching a charm offensive to keep attendees on board, sending out reassurances that they’re monitoring the coronavirus closely.
