[OSGeo-Discuss] On the cancellation of FOSS4G Calgary 2020

[Jon Neufeld]

Thank you Moritz, I appreciate it.

I hope we do!

Cheers,

Jon


On 5/30/2020 4:16 AM, Moritz Lennert wrote:
> 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 at 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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