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List:       osgeo-discuss
Subject:    Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] On the cancellation of FOSS4G Calgary 2020
From:       Moritz Lennert <mlennert () club ! worldonline ! be>
Date:       2020-05-30 10:16:54
Message-ID: 6F4D5CFE-5334-4329-B545-935B25909B37 () club ! worldonline ! be
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Hi Jon,

All my sympathies go out to you and the team. You did an amazing job preparing all \
this and I'm sure it would have been a wonderful event. I admire your courage to do \
it in the first place, and to pull the plug which I agree is the best solution in \
these uncertain times.

I hope we will have the opportunity to meet in Calgary some other time.

Moritz

Am 29. Mai 2020 17:34:11 MESZ schrieb Jon Neufeld <jonneufeld@gmail.com>:
> Hi All,
> 
> As you know the Calgary LOC has made the decision to cancel FOSS4G 2020
> 
> due to the COVID19 pandemic.
> 
> I have posted the rationale for our decision here 
> https://www.jonathanneufeld.com/the-rationale-for-canceling-a-global-event/
> 
> and have included it below as well.
> 
> TL;DR Trying to host a major international event during a pandemic 
> carried huge financial and reputational risks and we decided the safest
> 
> thing was to cancel.
> 
> Here is the full post:
> 
> ===================================================================
> 
> As we recently shared on Twitter and the website, FOSS4G 2020 Calgary 
> has been canceled. Clearly this wasn’t the outcome we were hoping for 
> after working for nearly two-years to bring this event to Calgary, but 
> the reality of COVID-19 is that we likely won’t see large gatherings of
> 
> people in 2020.
> 
> Recently another chair of a regional FOSS4G event wrote asking about
> our 
> decision to cancel and the reasoning behind it. In the spirit of 
> openness and an open community I thought I would share it here:
> 
> Hi, <name> Thanks for your note, I’m happy to share our thinking on 
> canceling the event and hopefully it can help inform your decision.
> 
> Context: Fast facts about FOSS4G 2020
> 
> - Planning Time: 2 years (Oct 2018 to Aug 2020)
> - Target Attendance: 1,200 to 1,500 people
> --- Break even attendance: 800 people
> - Total conference budget: $1M+
> - Real Cost to Cancel: ~$60 CAD
> 
> 
> We were well on our way to building a strong global FOSS4G event, we
> had 
> sponsors lined up, a government grant for ~$100k, and 116 people had 
> already bought tickets. When COVID19 first hit we thought it would pass
> 
> reasonably quickly and that things would “return to normal” fairly
> soon, 
> but as the travel bans came in to place and the government here
> extended 
> bans on gatherings it was clear that we would either need to 
> dramatically scale-back FOSS4G or cancel it altogether. Since we are so
> 
> close to the USA we were expecting that a big portion of our attendees 
> would be Americans. For the first time in history the
> longest-undefended 
> border in the world, the one between Canada and the USA is closed and 
> the USA has the highest Infection rate of any country on earth; they 
> aren’t getting that under control in the near future.
> 
> Keep in mind that we have already signed agreements with the largest 
> Convention Center in the city, and four major hotel chains. These 
> contracts all carry minimum cancellation amounts which ratchet up as
> you 
> get closer to the event. If we cancel them sooner, we end up paying
> less 
> , but if we cancel later the bill gets dramatically higher. When the 
> travel bans went into place the minimum payments added up to $250k CAD,
> 
> and if we waited to cancel the week before the event they were well
> over 
> $500k!
> 
> The gamble then, was this: do we try and host an event with a reduced 
> scope and hope that we get enough attendees to at least break even, 
> where do we cancel it and hope we can get out of the minimum payments.
> 
> We figured that even if the borders opened and COVID-19 disappeared 
> right away that people’s travel habits would not go back to “normal”. 
> Companies have slashed their travel budgets, people would still be wary
> 
> about international travel and large gatherings, and the world would
> not 
> return to a place where a global conference would work. Based on this
> we 
> determined that we could not hold an event that would break even.  
> TECTERRA Inc, the company backing up and organizing FOSS4G this year,
> is 
> a small nonprofit and we wouldn’t be able to sustain those kind of 
> losses. We also worried about the negative impact too reputation, both 
> the reputations of the event and of the organizers, if we held an 
> unsuccessful event.
> 
> All of this added together made it clear the only choice was to cancel 
> the 2020 event. We briefly discussed trying to push it to 2021, but 
> there were two things in the way. The Buenos Aires team was unwilling
> to 
> move their event, and a 2021 event means our local organizing committee
> 
> would have spent three years working on a five-day event. To be clear,
> I 
> don’t fault the 2021 BA team for holding fast, they have an LOC focused
> 
> on delivering an event at a specific time and I respect that.
> 
> So reluctantly we pulled the trigger and cancelled the event. We have 
> been fortunate that our venues and hotels were willing to work with us 
> and canceled the contracts without any further penalty.  I don’t need
> to 
> tell you how hard it is to cancel an event after putting in this much 
> work, and with your event happening later this year there is a chance
> it 
> might still work. I think it all depends on how quickly the COVID-19 
> situation changes, and the geographic area from which you’re pulling 
> your attendees. .
> 
> My unsolicited advice to you would be to wait for a while and see how 
> this shakes up in your region. You still have months until your event 
> and hopefully the governments and organizations in your region can get 
> COVID-19 under control. There is still the outstanding question of 
> whether people will be willing to travel to a conference then, and 
> you’ll need to weigh that carefully.
> 
> I hope that future LOCs don’t endure a once-in-a-life-time pandemic,
> but 
> I do wonder what the future holds for large in-person conferences.
> 
> In my opinion, FOSS4G is so much more than material presented. It’s 
> about meeting people, building relationships, and the serendipitous 
> bumping-into-someone-in-the-coffee-line that really builds and 
> strengthens community. This is nearly impossible to emulate with an 
> online conference, and until someone finds a way I think that large 
> in-person gatherings will continue.
> 
> ====================================================================================
>  
> Thanks for your understanding, and hopefully we can get together in
> 2021!
> 
> Jon
> 
> Co-chair FOSS4G Calgary 2020
> 
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