Digital Home Thoughts: PMA/CliQ 2011 Cancelled; Moves to CES 2012

"The rumors that flew around cyber-space all day Wednesday are true – the 2011 PMA, recently renamed and re-positioned as CliQ, has been moved from it’s early September, 2011 dates (6-11) to Jan. 10-13 at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, running concurrent with the 2012 International CES."

The PMA trade show is the photography industry's biggest trade show, along with the biannual Photokina. It has been a place where many new camera announcements were made (for example, the Nikon D70 was formally announced at PMA 2004), but it looks like the tsunami in Japan has caused major players like Nikon and Canon to pull out of the 2011 event, and I would not be surprised to see that part of the reason is in the commoditisation of consumer digital cameras. Still, PMA has always been an annual event through its long history, including the film days (yes, you know, before digital cameras came along). I am a little sad to see it get folded into CES, a show that is more consumer than photographer focused. Expect camera announcements to be scattered in September and October as a result.