SCTE held its annual Cable-Tec Expo in-person in Philadelphia this week, marking the first face-to-face staging of the conference since the Covid-19 pandemic began. And according to the organization, attendees came flocking back.
An SCTE representative told Fierce in-person attendance for the show was 15% above the pre-pandemic tally it achieved in 2019. The representative declined to provide a breakout figure, citing a directive from SCTE’s board.
It’s hard to calculate where exactly this puts the attendance figure. SCTE does not appear to have disclosed its attendance figures since 2018 and the show was virtual-only in 2020 and 2021. However, the Expo drew approximately 8,800 people when it was held in Denver in 2017, around 8,600 when it was floored in New Orleans in 2015 and 9,100 when it was staged in Denver in 2014. The last time it was held in Philadelphia, in 2016, more than 10,000 people attended.
"This year’s Expo represented everything we were hoping for as we celebrated our triumphant return to an in-person event in Philadelphia," SCTE CEO Mark Dzuban said in a statement. "Cable-Tec Expo was once again able to attract several thousand attendees and hundreds of exhibitors from across the globe.”
The SCTE representative told Fierce approximately 16% of the total registered attendees for the show chose to stream it virtually. Registrations are still “trickling in” for those interested in catching replays of the event sessions, which are available online through November 28, the representative said.
The Expo is due to head back to Denver in 2023 and SCTE expects the show to continue to grow, the representative added.