Attendance tops 58,000 at NAB Show 2026, drawing visitors from 146 countries
- National Association of Broadcasters said NAB Show 2026 ended in Las Vegas with more than 58,000 attendees from 146 countries, as the media trade show pushed deeper into streaming, sports and creator tools. - Organizers said 70% of attendees were buyers and 48% were first-timers, while this year’s floor featured more than 1,100 exhibitors and nearly doubled its artificial intelligence exhibitor count from 2025. - The show’s pitch has shifted from broadcast hardware to applied AI, cloud and creator businesses, reflecting a wider media market moving from experiments to execution. (nabshow.com)
NAB Show 2026 closed in Las Vegas with more than 58,000 attendees from 146 countries, according to the National Association of Broadcasters. (nabshow.com) The trade group said 70% of attendees were buyers and 48% were first-time visitors at the April 18-22 event at the Las Vegas Convention Center. (nabshow.com) NAB Show said the event drew the global media and entertainment business across Central, West and North Hall, with more than 1,100 exhibitors on the floor. (nabshow.com 1) (nabshow.com 2) This year’s theme was “The Future Expands Beyond Broadcasting,” and the programming centered on artificial intelligence, sports, streaming, cloud workflows and the creator economy. (nabshow.com 1) (nabshow.com 2) Before the show opened, NAB said the industry had entered “a new phase” defined by execution rather than experimentation, with artificial intelligence moving into production, postproduction, distribution and newsroom systems. (nabshow.com) NAB also said the show nearly doubled its number of artificial intelligence exhibitors from 2025 and added two AI pavilions to highlight tools from companies including Adobe, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Google Cloud. (nabshow.com) The creator push was visible in the numbers before doors opened. NAB said registrations from people identifying as creators, influencers or podcasters were running at more than double 2025 levels, while self-described social media producers were up about 150%. (nabshow.com) Sports was another expansion area. NAB opened a four-day Sports Summit to all attendees and said leagues, teams, broadcasters, streaming platforms and investment firms would use the event to discuss rights, distribution and fan engagement. (nabshow.com 1) (nabshow.com 2) Tata Communications used the show to demonstrate its live event and exchange infrastructure, including a Mobile Messaging Exchange product page tied to its NAB 2026 presence and broader media-event services. (tatacommunications.com) (tatacommunications.com) The attendance total suggests NAB has stabilized as a dealmaking event even as the business around it keeps changing. The booths were still full of cameras and control-room gear, but the selling point in 2026 was software, cloud capacity and monetization. (nabshow.com) (nabshow.com)
