Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2022 is set to take place between January 5 and January 8. But now it looks like the tradeshow might not go as previously planned. Top companies including Amazon, Twitter, Meta and Pinterest have scrapped plans of attending the in-person events in Las Vegas last month.
As per a Bloomberg report, Amazon and its smart home brand Ring said that they would not be present onsite at the event next month owing to the “quickly shifting situation and uncertainty around the Omicron variant” of coronavirus.
Twitter and Facebook had planned to have some employees attend the tradeshow to participate in panel discussions. Now, both the companies have said they are now exploring online opportunities instead. “…due to the spike in COVID cases across the country in the past week, we’ve decided to cancel our in-person presence at CES next month,” Twitter said in a statement to CNET.
Pinterest and iHeartRadio too have decided to opt out of having in-person presence. In addition to this, T-Mobile, which is also a leading sponsor for January’s event has also pulled out of the event. “…we are prioritizing the safety of our team and other attendees with this decision…Additionally, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert will no longer be offering a keynote in-person or virtually,” the company wrote in a blog post.
“T-Mobile will continue to serve as a CES sponsor and title sponsor of the DRL Championship Race but the vast majority of our team will not be traveling to Las Vegas,” it added.
While some companies are ditching hosting in-person events owing to the growing number of Covid-19 cases, others are sticking to their plans. Qualcomm, Sony Electronic and Alphabet’s self-driving car unit, Waymo, OnePlus and HTC are sticking to their plans of hosting meetings for showing off their gadgets. AMD and Samsung are still planning on having a limited presence while chipmaker Nvidia will be having two of its executives present a keynote virtually, something the company had planned to do long ago.
Meanwhile, the Consumer Technology Association, which organises CES every year has said that it is taking an abundance of precautions for hosting people at the event. Health precautions being taken by the company would include vaccination requirements, masking and the availability of COVID-19 tests.
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