Bristol 2022 Hi-Fi Show Has Been Cancelled

After watching British PM Boris Johnson on the news the other night, we had a weird feeling that the Bristol 2022 Hi-Fi Show was going to be cancelled again. What’s becoming painfully clear is that the Omicron variant has already spooked government officials enough that pandemic rules are going to make trade shows very difficult in 2022.

With that in mind, we have official word this morning that the Bristol 2022 Hi-Fi Show has been cancelled and that a new date for 2023 is being finalized.

“With a heavy heart, we feel we have no alternative but to cancel the Show for a second year running”, announced the show organizers this morning in an email to vendors and the media.

The Bristol 2022 Show was scheduled for Friday 25th – Sunday 27th February 2022; the show had a “Go/ No Go” deadline for rubber stamping the agreement for the rooms and staff at the hotel.

…with the arrival of the Omicron variant and the resulting measures that the Government is taking, it is clear that the Show cannot run without putting our visitors, our exhibitors and our own staff at unacceptable risk.

Bristol Show Organizers

So how does this impact the rest of the show schedule?

There are already rumors that brands are looking to back out of CES 2022 which is only weeks away, and some companies like Vizio have already announced that they will be doing their own event in Las Vegas outside of the show. We took a look at the detailed map of CES 2022 and noticed that the number of empty booths is starting to grow.

The next two shows on the calendar are planned for Los Angeles and Tampa in Q1 2022 and it is probably too early to know how travel rules will impact either show. Having traveled to Florida twice this year already to visit family, I suspect the Tampa event will take place; albeit with probably fewer vendors.

With cases in Europe still on the upswing, Munich 2022 is the big question right now.