NAB is back! Well, almost.
While still smaller than in pre-pandemic days, the 2023 NAB Show was a welcome return to (almost) normal. With over 65,000 attendees, the exhibition brought many of us back together again, a significant increase from last year (which, in my opinion, was still a pandemic year). We have a long way to go to reach pre-pandemic attendance levels, but it sure felt good to see so many people across the three halls that now make up NAB Show.
It was great to connect with so many customers, prospects, partners, press, and analysts. Many thanks to those who stopped by the SDVI booth to catch up on what’s new or just to say hello. It was also fun to see all the handshakes and hugs between industry colleagues. That’s what I love most about this industry: We’re a tight community of people who genuinely care for one another. Our relationships make this industry thrive, and I saw it demonstrated over and over again throughout the show.
The SDVI booth was a very busy space. We had more meetings this year than ever, with visitors from almost every continent. Our booth gave those visitors a comfortable space to engage in meaningful conversations about their own media supply chain transformations. Clearly, people are hearing about the ROI of cloud-based media supply chains and want to learn more. We can not only give them clear-cut metrics from our existing customers but also help them quickly identify opportunities for optimization in their current operations.
On Sunday evening, we hosted almost 300 industry VIPs at our annual event at Allegiant Stadium, home to the Las Vegas Raiders. What an amazing venue! And what a great time! This opening night networking reception is rapidly becoming the must-attend event at NAB, and we couldn’t be happier to host it. It’s not just a great opportunity for industry leaders to network with one another in a truly impressive setting; the SDVI NAB Show opening night party is where customers, partners, and industry luminaries come together for a genuinely enjoyable evening. I’m already looking forward to next year – and more of the famous lobster corndogs!
Just a day later, on Monday, the awards started rolling in. First, our own Chris Brähler won an NAB Show Excellence in Sustainability Award and was named a Sustainability Champion. We couldn’t be more proud of Chris and his role in leading SDVI’s initiatives for creating a more sustainable corporate environment. Chris has not only pushed us to become carbon neutral but also built a program that offsets all of our customers’ carbon emissions. Kudos to Chris for such forward-thinking leadership.
On Tuesday our Rally platform received an NAB Product of the Year award. This recognition of our cloud-based media supply chain solution is further validation of our leadership in helping media companies migrate to the cloud, and it reaffirms the enterprise value they enjoy when they make that move. We’re proud of the recognition, but even more proud of the feedback we’re getting from customers who confirm the value we provide them every day.
So, with all that fresh in my mind, I’ll close with some thoughts about the state of technology in our industry. It was clear at the show that we are well into a transition from bespoke hardware products to flexible, cloud-based software solutions. It was also clear that a simple “lift and shift” of existing applications to the cloud is not what media organizations are looking for. I found it encouraging to see how much more cloud-savvy show attendees have become, and their engagement around cloud-native solutions indicated how far the industry has progressed in terms of maximizing cloud utilization. Over and over, we heard attendees express their desire for more flexibility and agility, as well as speed, to help them meet the changes in the market.
The world of cloud software is one of continuous innovation, fueled in part by agile vendors responding to customer demand, and customers having more choice over the tools they want to use for any particular task. What’s also vitally important is that the platforms customers use are well-integrated with an ecosystem of cloud applications that can be summoned on demand for any job in the supply chain.
I loved seeing so many media companies engaged in discussions with the SDVI team at NAB to learn about how Rally delivers on the promise of truly cloud-native media supply chains. The Rally platform, along with its more than 50 application services, gave our visitors a vision of how they could optimize their operations from ingest through delivery.
If you weren’t able to meet with us at NAB, contact us. We’d be delighted to bring the NAB experience to you!
