There is nothing quite like sequins whipping through the air. A slew of sparkles streaming across the sky. Perhaps they are expected in Vegas, alongside shrieks, applause, and the smell of hairspray.

Except… this was with eight-year-olds.

Welcome to NAB 2026, happening the same week as a cheerleading competition and WrestleMania. Because why not!

And along with the sequins, there’s danger in the air…

• Stunting in the air? Danger.
• Flying through the air and landing a wrestling move? Danger
• Looking at your packed NAB schedule? Danger.
• Worried about not seeing enough? Danger.
• Worried about seeing too much? Danger.

When it comes to danger, perhaps there is power and safety in numbers and groups. It is fitting, then, that the Westgate Hotel is home to the reunion of Carol Sturka and Koumba Diabaté in Apple TV’s Pluribus. Specifically, on the 30th floor of the Villas (best inside joke ever if you happened to see the note still on display on the casino screens).

E Pluribus Unum. Not just written on the coins you lost here in Vegas, but perhaps a little something that may help with the danger: Out of many, one.

It is a fitting reminder that your individual map through the sequins, a bond through compounds, relies on what works for you. You may be a content creator. A DP. Someone who is picking up the camera for the first time. Someone who started a company thirty years ago. And yet, we get to meet, mingle, match up, and make our way through the show floor; now together and then disparately as connected points. Altogether, it’s one light on the show floor and then leaving out to make our own light after, like a Lite Brite. It’s alchemy through and through. One of many. And then many more.

Like many sparkles streaming across the sky.

Out of many, one.

So perhaps, when things feel dangerous, or we’re nervous, we may have to revert ot our own alchemy; the personal chemistry of talent that we have to pursue the things that are just right. We have to find our own sparkles, not unlike the sparkles that stream across the sky as astrophage, lit up bright red in “Project Hail Mary.”

Sound designer and supervising sound editor for “Project Hail Mary,”  Erik Aadahl knows the power of detail and auditory sparkle. “There’s magic in movies, an alchemy between sound and picture” to help “empathy,” Aadahl shared during his session at the SMPTE Visual Innovation and Brilliant Engineering Conference at NAB show.

“Project Hail Mary” focuses on the interaction between human and alien life in an ultimate reflection on humanity and collaboration. Our relationship with AI, too, forces us to reckon where we are in our communication, our work, and our current AI adoption. It’s like we are simultaneously ahead and behind at the same time. It is not unlike the television screens downstairs in the Westgate, playing early 2000’s music such as Tal Bachman’s “She’s So High” (which left me feeling I’m So Old) with a half-second delay between the sound and the picture. Totally unsynced. Somehow ahead and behind at the exact same time.

Where are you with Agentic AI? Ahead, behind, or just on target, right on the money with your stunt work (nailed it)?

Let this be a reminder to all of us, myself and the cheerleaders included, and of many one thing: that we are here to learn.

Out of many, one.

Out of many, me.

And out of all, humans, as I am reminded yet again at my first NAB Session, “Spark to Story: Crafting Narratives for Brands” with Dmitry Koshutin. We need to focus on the humans above all else.

As I hop in the elevator at the conclusion of Saturnight, No Doubt reminds me of what is to come:

Ooh, on Sunday morning

Without a warning

We will not be caught without warning like Dorothy’s shoes under the Las Vegas Sphere with red sparkles of her own. There’s no place like home. Welcome home NAB. E Pluribus Unum.

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“Are you ready to be “Amaze Amaze Amaze?” We are!

If something on the showfloor truly does “Amaze. Amaze. Amaze” us, we will bestow our first-ever Best in Show Awards by ProVideo Coalition.

Here at NAB? Come say hi at our FilmTools booth at C489!

Announcements and updates from NAB have already been posted at PVC. More to come through the next several days, including video coverage, demos, and, for the first time ever, the Best of Show Awards! Look for those on Tuesday morning!