WABE to Meet to Celebrate 75 Years
[May 2025] The broadcast industry has a lot of engineers around the world. One of the groups with a lot of experience comes from Canada. This year marks the 75th Anniversary of the WABE – The Western Association of Broadcast Engineers. Tessa Potter is the current President of the Association, and they are planning a special convention this year to make that 75th Anniversary.
For all of us working behind the scenes in broadcasting — both in Canada and the US — our feeds have been flooded with NAB Show coverage for the past couple of months.
I have been watching especially closely, as we have just launched our sponsorship, exhibitor, and attendee registration for our regional conference this fall: the WABE Media and Entertainment Technology Conference. This year marks our 75th anniversary!
For those of us who have worked behind the scenes, especially in radio and television broadcasting, those 75 years have seen a lot of technology. While we all work with technology whose foundation started many years ago, it has just constantly developed over time. And today, we see it developing at the most rapid of paces in history.
A REAL CHALLENGE
One of the challenges our small volunteer-run organization has faced is the same one AES, NAB, and SBE are having: for a very long time, we were all well-attended, had strong engagement, and saw continuous membership growth.
And then — all of a sudden, in the 1990s — our membership, which was still strong, began to age all at once.
Fast-forward to the pandemic, and even in our own organization, we have handed out more retirement awards in the last ten years than we did innovation awards for great projects.
So, our small team has had to face this reality and work on how to engage a new generation of workers. How do we connect with those working in the industry who do not even know organizations like ours exist — let alone know we want them to participate, to hear their voices, and to connect?
REACHING OUT
With limited resources, volunteer aspirations, and full-time jobs, our executive team has spent countless hours exploring this.
We have reached out to not-for-profit experts, looked at what is working in other sectors, and built a strategic plan to tackle growth. But so much of getting people in the door is just about reaching out, connecting, inviting people, and making sure there is youth at the table.
One thing we have learned is that we have a lot of expertise — in video, audio, RF and distribution, media technology systems, and IT systems for media. We know the experts. We know who makes the standards. We know which manufacturers to call to get advice.
At the same time, we are realizing there is a large, growing group of professionals making, creating, and distributing content who did not grow up in the same environment as those of us from broadcasting. They do not always know there is a whole variety of technology out there to help them — and people who know exactly how that technology works.
GATHERING OF GREAT PEOPLE AND MANUFACTURERS
We also know that in Canada, we have had a longstanding broadcast technology innovation sector — something you can see through products that are household names today like Ross, Evertz, Haivision, CommLab, and Nautel, just to name a few.
Bringing the people and the manufacturers together is very important. This year, our WABE conference is happening September 29 – Oct 1, 2025 at the Calgary TELUS Convention Centre. It is one part 75th birthday, one part reunion, and one part “first day of our future.”
The WABE gathering is a real, regional, close, and intimate space to talk technology across sectors.
Getting together like this is especially important in order to bring together so many of our connections who are working across all sectors of the media and entertainment technology industry. It is the kind of networking event that reminds people each of us are still in the industry — and it helps build the connections that are going to allow for each person’s next career move.
COME ON UP AND JOIN US
What we want to share with readers of The Broadcasters Desktop Resource and other industry resources is that there are still opportunities — even if you could not make it to NAB Show.
In Calgary we can gather, connect, and learn about what is happening in Canada and in the industry. It is located only about an hour and a half drive from the Rockies, and you can even take in Banff for the weekend before dropping by the conference.
Exhibit booths are only $1,450 to get in front of new people, and it is under $200 for a full pass – plus, we have always welcomed students for free.
A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
Business in Canada has always been slightly different.
In other large regional centres, our teams are small — especially outside of Toronto. But those who attend our conference are connected, and they are making decisions — especially in broadcast radio and television. Even though we have opened our doors to a wider group who need the knowledge our members hold to help their businesses and ideas thrive in content creation and distribution, we always know where we came.
75 YEARS OF WABE AND THE ROAD AHEAD
Of course, technology does not happen overnight.
It is a progression. The speed of progress might be changing, but its fundamental start was humble — hard work, basic electronics, and physics. And those of us working behind the scenes have always been trying to learn and solve problems, to help and support the businesses that hire us.
Seventy-five years does not change that basic area of knowledge and experience. It also does not change the fact that this is a community — people sharing their knowledge and ideas. That is what has helped grow the quality of the sound, the quality of the picture, and now the innovation behind new technologies.
People make this happen. People like those who attend WABE’s Media and Entertainment Technology Conference.
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More information on WABE’s Media and Entertainment Technology Conference, including the Conference Program and Travel & Accommodation, can be found here.
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Tessa Potter is the President of WABE. You can contact her at tessapotter@live.ca
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