What I Learned at NAB, Part One

Kitschy t-shirts sell, apparently.

Right now the Las Vegas Convention Center is not too crowded, as the bulk of the NAB attendees will be arriving tomorrow. The official NAB gift shop is bustling however, and is even holding a 40% off sale on select items… before the show starts.

What surprised me was not the fact that there was a store, of course there needs to be one, but rather what is for sale there. Yes, they have manuals about the DTV transition and IPTV, as well as microphones and pencil holders shaped like little TVs, but the big seller is apparently kitschy t-shirts based on hit TV shows. You know, like the ones they sell in Times Square. Most of the shirts looked officially licensed, but a few seemed ambiguous to me.

There was a whole rack of House shirts, a section dedicated to Desperate Housewives, you name the show, there was a t-shirt for it.

This got me thinking; do TV professionals really come to a TV trade show and buy crappy t-shirts featuring astute witticisms such as “I will be the gardener if you be my desperate housewife”?

Though the one saying “eat my shorts!” with an arrow pointing downward was very tempting. Only $19.95!