NAB and The Whale

When I was a kid, I had Toys-R-Us and the Sears Wishbook. When I got my drivers license in high school, I had the JC Whitney catalog. When I bought my first house, I had Home Depot. Seemingly disparate, but all toy palaces for each stage in life. But none was bigger or bolder (or more expensive) than that shiny bacchanalia of my chosen career: the annual National Association of Broadcaster trade show, or simply: NAB.

The NAB Show in 1947. I stumbled across this image in my research, noting the WBAL truck from my current hometown of Baltimore.

NAB has been the premiere showcase of new broadcasting technology since the early days of radio and TV. As the industry and technology expanded, so did the Show to include post production, graphics and animation systems and a whole lot of stuff I didn’t even know existed. The annual trade show was held in various cities until it found its permanent home in Las Vegas. 100,000+ people from around the world attend every year (although covid threw some curveballs the past few years).

I’ve been attending since the mid-80s as an exhibitor when I worked at Genigraphics. We decided to try to pivot our presentation graphics design systems to the video animation market. And since I knew the systems in and out, I was pressed into demo service. I think I still have the sunburn rash from sitting inches from the large wall of CRTs in our small booth that first year. I also pulled double duty by shooting video and stills for internal projects. That’s where I met the CEO of Ikegami - I had my Ike 730A (being orange, it was hard to miss) when a flotilla of Japanese and American businessmen passed me while I was shooting our booth. The Japanese alpha stopped, smiled and asked in broken English if I liked my camera. I responded, “Why, yes I do - very much!” He smiled even broader, nodded, patted me on the shoulder and walked on with his crew in tow. The last guy in line said to me, “Congrats - you just made Mr. Ikegami’s day!”

The salad days of Genigraphics. Setting up our booth at some trade show, somewhere. Could be NAB - I don’t know. But I do know that girl on the right!

Those were heady times - working for a young company, carousing with a young crew in exciting cities on an expense account. Which were the true origin of the concept of the “docu-drama”: our expense reports were usually thought-provoking and usually based on facts.

Once I went freelance and we moved out West to Reno, NAB was firmly entrenched in Vegas and only a short plane ride away. My annual pilgrimage became more of an annual reunion of my old friends and coworkers from back East and new colleagues from the West coast. Rarely did I go to audition new equipment, but rather to run up other peoples’ expense accounts at the various after-hours vendor and user group parties. 

2009 was an especially good NAB year for me. My work was included in Reel Impressions, a showcase of animation work done in the industry that brought me a lot of exposure. I was a beta tester for several popular third party developers for Adobe’s After Effects and it seemed, that year, I had my mitts into every popular high-end software add-on. Including one that won a Scientific and Technical Oscar - the only time I could claim to have been involved in an Oscar-winning production! (The CEO told me I could say that… so I am.) And I came home with a treasure trove of about $15k worth of raffle winnings of software and post production hardware.

An international audience of 100,000! My work on the big screen: priceless. How much actual work generated from that exposure: $0.

I had seen the worst of Vegas’ accommodations during an earlier Genigraphics trip: a very seedy motel that was arranged by our Marketing secretary for our group. Even the cabbie, upon dropping me off, asked, “you sure about this?” I should’ve known something was up when the guy at the front desk (actually a mesh-reinforced window) looked at me incredulous when I said I had a reservation. The motor court was - let’s say “lively” - that night. It remains the only time I actually blockaded the door with a dresser and purposely slept on top of the bed covers. Turns out that secretary had cancelled all those reservations, had put us in a much better resort hotel, but forgot to tell me.

This isn’t that motel. This is for reference. This is several steps in quality above that motel. Even in its current form.

But in 2009, I saw the opposite end of the accommodation spectrum. I had my room booked at Paris but at the last minute decided to attend an industry consortium/training session on a new fad called “podcasting.” Which meant I had to extend my stay by adding a single night to the beginning of my reservation. Which Paris refused to do. Imagine the difficulty of trying to find a single night stay, at the last minute, at the height of NAB, competing with 99,999 other travelers. Luckily, I found it at Caesars Palace.

I flew down on the first flight out of Reno to LV. It was a particularly hot day, made worse by having to drag my luggage to the day-long (boring and turned out to be worthless) presentation and then over to Ceasars. By the time I’d arrived and waited in line to check in, I was a hot and cranky mess. The young woman checking me in noticed (I’ll call her Maggie - she looked like a Maggie) and asked if I’d had a bad day and listened patiently while I griped about my adventures - and the fact that I had to repeat it again the next day because I was only staying a single night, then trudge back to that dump of a Paris. She said, “I’m sorry, but I’ll take care of you.” I wasn’t in the mood for pandering but I was pleasant. Maggie handed me the key card and I slogged through the deafening casino over to the elevators.

I got off on an upper floor of the original Caesars tower where my room was supposed to be. I walked all the way down one hallway and couldn’t find my room. I was a bit miffed. So I walked all the way down the other hallway and couldn’t find my room. Now I was pissed. I went back to the elevator to return to the front desk, crafting my WTF speech in my head. But before pressing the button, I looked over to the double doors at the center of the hallway. The room number matched my card. I thought to myself, “no way…” I first pressed my ear against the door to listen for occupancy. Nothing. Then I knocked. Nothing. Then I inserted my card. The light turned green and the door opened. Maggie had indeed taken care of me. She gave me a Whale Room.

This is only part of the actual suite I was given.

This single suite had more bedrooms, more bathrooms, more kitchen, more square footage and more technology than our entire house back in Reno! It occupied two floors. I could’ve hosted all my friends coming in from both coasts and still had acreage left over. Problem was: no one was coming in yet. I was all by myself and no one would’ve believed me. At that time, I only a had non-camera flip phone, so I went back downstairs to the gift shop and purchased a crappy single use film camera to document my accommodations. (I know - the irony of being in the mecca of all the highest-end image acquisition technology was not lost on me as all I could muster was a cardboard Instamatic.) I called my wife and asked how quickly she could get here (she couldn’t), then called my sister-in-law, who works at Luxor but was on shift and couldn’t join me either. So I went out on one of my three balconies and enjoyed the evening with a few beers. By myself.

My suite took up these three balconies. Perfect perch for some cocktails.

The next morning the woman at the check-out desk asked how my stay was. “Surprisingly pleasant,” I answered. She looked up and smiled, “I bet it was.” I asked what that room goes for and she explained that they use that room as a comp for high rollers (or “whales”), so there really is no rate attached. She said they’re encouraged to randomly give it to guests (if it’s not being used) so Maggie probably did take pity on me the day prior. But if she had to offer a guess on a rate, it’d probably be in the $3000 - $4000 per night range. (And remember that was 2009.)

So NAB 2009 was not so crappy after all. Except that camera. Its level of crappiness exceeded its level of operability: the photos did not come out.