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On Sunday April 15th 2012 I had the chance to attend my first ever NAB Conference in Las Vegas. Myself and a classmate earned a sponsorships from our Film program to attend the conference for 3 days. Excited about this once in a lifetime opportunity, I agreed to write a short paper on why I should attend the conference.

Our flight flew out of Toronto at 5pm on Sunday and we landed in Las Vegas at 2:00am West Coast Time. It wasn’t my first time in Vegas, but it was my first time flying somewhere for ‘business’ and not just for a vacation. We were excited and nervous at what we would be experiencing in the morning.

Vegas was full of NAB attendees, everywhere you went you would see the NAB badges everywhere, even the cab drivers knew we were there for the NAB. So the conference itself was MASSIVE, and I wasn’t surprised at that. Teachers of mine that had gone in previous years warned me we would be walking for hours- and that we did.

I’m more into the post-production world, so seeing and experiencing the AVID booth was like a kid in a candy store. They had everything displayed there, and there were demos of their programs happening throughout the days. A few times I sat through the sessions at their AVID theatre, and it was amazing being around people that were into editing as much as I am.

The Acquisitions hall had all the cameras,tripods,lighting all the techie stuff. I’m not that into cameras, but seeing these beautiful machines was definitely a huge learning experience. I think we stayed at the Canon booth for over an hour, playing around with the cameras and testing each one out on their display thing. Basically, for all the big camera companies, they would have a stage where actors would act out a silent play, the lighting would change, and it would just keep repeating itself through the day. It was so you had something to compare the cameras to…and you don’t just aim the camera at a pointless object. The RED booth was definitely one of my favorites, we stood in line and watched the short film ‘LOOM’ that was in 3D. So cool.

I did really want to attend the sessions, it was a main reason why I wanted to attend the NAB. When I had heard Julie Plec from Vampire Diaries was going to be there, I knew I had to get into that session and hear what she had to say. Unfortunately, the passes we had did not let us into the sessions, and the security people at the front doors weren’t nice enough to let two students in- so sucks for me!

The ZACUTO Lounge definitely won best booth- they had a VIP Lounge..with a full bar…seriously what else could you ask for? Only in Vegas would they have an open bar at one of the booths.

I didn’t get to see a whole lot of Vegas, but I definitely did learn a lot- things about the camera world I never thought I’d learn. It was definitely one of the best experiences, I’m so lucky to have been given this chance to go- and although my legs are still killing me from all the walking-I would do it all over again.

Check out some of these pics I took while I was there.