They've been seeing more and more sponsors and presenters pull out in recent days. Better to cancel it and seem like you're doing the right thing than hold a poorly attended convention, get bad PR for doing so, and still risk infecting a large number of people.
Unless that liability is worth more than the entire company it's not a good reason to cancel. Once the cancellations started nobody wants to be the one conference that isn't canceled.
A lot of companies (Adobe, Ross, AJA, Nikon, among others) had already pulled out of NAB before this announcement, the writing was on the wall.
Re:Nab 2020 Cancelled
by Stratoscope on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @03:33PM
(#22549575)
If someone does the right thing for fear of public backlash, they still did the right thing.
Re:Nab 2020 Cancelled
by phillipseamore on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @03:34PM
(#22549587)
Well, many of the largest exhibitors had already pulled out.
Are they doing the right thing because they're worried about the public's wellbeing or they're worried about backlash? Ultimately I suppose it doesn't matter why.