Show Time
Do I stay
Or do I go
Do I watch the video?
Here we are at the height of Show season. Event producers are fighting their way back from lockdowns and irrelevance.
Industry Shows are live. Yes, Friends, live. Or live with a video link, just in case.
There’s certainly a fondness for the good old days, when two people could stand together and whisper about that strange fellow in the corner.
When well-rehearsed stories (Fabrication isn’t just a manufacturing term, you know) could be evaluated in terms of a facial tic.
You can’t catch a wry smile through a ten-cent face mask.
My Speed Survey
A face mask doesn’t do a thing for your health (ref. Dr. Fauci, version 1) but it will get you on an airplane, into a show, and it will conceal what we used to call non-verbal communication.
So, maybe that’s a little bit of what I’m discovering, as I ask around.
I can tell you that I’ve uncovered a certain amount of, um, reticence about attending shows. It runs anywhere from “I don’t care.” (That’s the cleaned up version) to “I don’t like to fly any more.”
Now I’ll take “I don’t care” at (if you’ll excuse the term) face value. There’s a good chance that so many of us have been isolated for so long that our idea of personal interaction is a Zoom call with a palm tree background screen.
No-Fly Zones
But a real show stopper (and I use that term correctly) is the airline fiasco.
If it’s not enough to visit the TSA proctologist, have your hard drive fondled by the masked stranger with rubber gloves, and do the sprint to Gate B999 with restrictive breathing gear, just wait ’til you find out that your flight on Phantom Airlines is not to be.
Oh, yes, fellow traveler. Airline Terminal is not just a building. It’s a business condition.
To step you through logic no politician could comprehend…
No jab, no job.
No job, no pilot.
No pilot, and you won’t be home tonight.
I actually did a short article on October flight cancellations. Unusual weather patterns seemed to circulate around high-pressure mandate areas. Afronted systems triggered blustery conditions.
Thousands and thousands of flights just disappeared, without anyone ever saying vaccine.
The Question
So, that’s the question… Go? Don’t go?
There’s the real possibility that light attendance at a show could result in valuable uninterrupted conversations. That’s exactly what has happened for me in the past.
But packing for a 3-day trip might require a week and a half of survival gear, if recent war stories are any gauge.
It’s going to be interesting. -TD