Dispatch from the Neon Frontier: NAB Show 2025
I’m leaving Las Vegas today, headed back to New York City — soul a bit blistered, shoes a little warped, and head still spinning from the sonic boom that is the NAB Show.
The smells — coffee, popcorn, disinfectant, hot tech. The anxiety pulses even now, a residue that never washes off. There’s the buzz of ambition in every hallway. Booths screaming for attention. Deals being whispered in corners. Eyeballs darting, brands flashing.
This is NAB, baby! Where titans and tiny startups share the same dirty carpet. Where the hopeful stand two feet from the jaded, and the future is pitched, pixel by pixel.
I’ve been coming to this show for over two decades. It was here — in this city of spectacle — that StudentFilmmakers Magazine first launched from the heat of the strip and the cool of an idea. I remember that debut year with Jody — the way she held it together while I panicked about booth placement and print deliveries like it was life or death. Maybe it was. The competitors didn’t play clean — shouting insults near our booth, burying our bins beneath their own material, pulling the curtain (literally) on our visibility.
But it didn’t stop us. StudentFilmmakers rose. Because the real stuff — the connections, the community, the stories — they can’t be faked or buried.
Fast forward to 2025 — different shoes, same anxiety. But walking into the Convention Center still feels like the opening chord of a great song. The smell of the carpet and crates, the polish in the air, it’s familiar. Like stepping into a boxing ring you’ve danced in before. You know the blows, but you also know how to counter.
This year, we came armed with new relationships, new advertisers, new goals. First stop: the press room. Ron, Ashley, and Sheriff — friendly faces, pro moves, got us our credentials without a hitch. Then came the check on our bins — polished, stocked, and gleaming. Still one of the most popular reads at the show. Still the real deal.
I’ve worked with the best. The ASC. And, many top Broadcast and Music Industry mags and portals. I know circulation tricks. I know BPA audits. We built our mag subscriber list from 0 to 24,000 qualified readers in six months back when the winds were in our favor — and even now, we hold the line.
We made the rounds. Met our supporters. Shook hands with giants and indie dreamers. Talked lenses and lighting and AI until we could taste the buzzwords on our tongues. But underneath it all — underneath the tech and the algorithms — I kept thinking one thing:
No company is an island anymore.
This industry doesn’t move without the people who breathe life into it. The writers in dim apartments. The crews in the cold. The cinematographers carrying cameras like sacred totems through impossible days. They are the beating heart.
Somewhere, someone is writing the next great story — something raw, uncut, and beautiful — and it will employ thousands, unite millions. This isn’t just gear and gadgets. This is the business of shared dreams.
And if you want to build a lasting brand in this space? Forget the hard sell. Build relationships. Real ones. With your users. With your community. With the kid holding the boom pole and the exec holding the checkbook. They’re all part of the same ecosystem.
So here’s to Las Vegas, 2025 — a city of grit and glitter, of chaos and clarity. I came out scorched and smiling, hopeful and heavier, reminded that in this wild world of storytelling and tech:
It’s not what you sell. It’s who you know — and who you lift.
See you next year.
— Kim Welch
StudentFilmmakers | HD Pro Guide | Sports Video Tech
Publisher. Connector. Survivor.
Picking up the Student Filmmakers Magazine
