Park City, Utah
#2 Entertainment Industry Event
A vital launching pad for independent films, the festival, presented by the Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, attracts about 46,000 people a year to several locations in Park City. The event is often an early forecaster of what will get recognition at the Academy Awards. This year, the festival reached a milestone when Fox Searchlight acquired The Birth of a Nation in a record-setting $17.5 million deal. The movie also won several Sundance awards, which have categories for audience and jury votes. Next: January 19-29, 2017
New York
#3 Entertainment Industry Event (up from #4)
Every year in May, TV networks present their upcoming shows to advertisers and other sponsors for the networks’ largest bids to increase advertising and marketing revenues. In 2016, several networks—including Discovery Communications and Sony Pictures Television's Crackle—increased the virtual-reality content in their presentations, which were held at various locations throughout the city. Next: May 2017
Las Vegas
#4 Entertainment Industry Event (up from #5)
The association hosts several events throughout the year, but the show at the Las Vegas Convention Center is considered the biggest and the best. What started out in 1923 as a gathering for radio professionals has grown and evolved in the digital age into the world’s largest electronic media convention that includes companies representing radio, television, the Internet, mobile communications, gaming, and emerging technologies. In 2016, NAB Show attendance (103,000 people) and exhibit space (more than 1 million square feet) were about the same as the previous year, but the convention had significant growth in the number of exhibitors: 1,874 companies, compared to 1,789 in 2015. Next: April 22-27 2017
Washington
#5 Entertainment Industry Event
Every year since 1978, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts selects five honorees who have made outstanding contributions to the performing arts. They are feted in a ceremony at the Kennedy Center Opera House, with the president and first lady in attendance. CBS later broadcasts the ceremony. In 2016, the honorees are Al Pacino, the Eagles, Mavis Staples, James Taylor, and Martha Argerich. Ratings for the show dipped in 2015 (with 7.5 million viewers, compared to 9 million viewers the previous year), but the viewership was still high enough to win in its time slot. Next: December 4, 2016
Los Angeles
#6 Entertainment Industry Event
Held every January and July, the tour is the TV industry’s biggest gathering to promote its shows to journalists. Stars and executives participate in discussion panels, and the networks host memorable parties. The annual TCA Awards (presented during the July session) has grown in prestige since their launch in 1985, because the award nominations are announced about one week before the Emmy nominations ballots are due. Next: January 5-21, 2017
Las Vegas
#7 Entertainment Industry Event (new to the list)
The official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners launched in 2011 as a rebranding of the association’s ShoWest. Since then, the event, held at Caesars Palace, has become the largest and most important U.S. gathering for the worldwide motion-picture theater industry. In an era of major movie studios scaling back their presence at Comic-Con International as television shows rise in prominence there, the major studios are still fully on board to showcase their expected blockbusters here. In 2016, the event had about 5,000 attendees and more than 500 booths and 12 premium demonstration suite locations in about 300,000 square feet of exhibit space. The International Cinema Technology Association and National Association of Concessionaires help present the show. Next: March 27-30, 2017
Miami
#8 Entertainment Industry Event
With the Shelbourne Wyndham Grand as its main hub, the conference was presented over four days—a decrease from its five-day outing the previous year. The rise of Electric Daisy Carnival and other festivals geared to electronic dance music has meant more competition, but it is still considered the most prestigious conference for people in the E.D.M. industry, with an estimated 100,000 attendees every year. Next: March 2017
