This week the Paris Blockchain Week Summit was rescheduled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Like many other event organizers, it is simply better to move dates than to hope for the best as the number of global cases grows.
Originally, Paris Blockchain Week was scheduled to start the end of this month on March 31st. Today, the event has been moved to the end of the year and is now taking place on December 9-10, 2020.
Organizers issued the following statement:
“Over the past weeks, we have been closely monitoring global developments around the Coronavirus outbreak. The security and safety of our attendees, speakers and sponsors will always be our top priority. In addition, the recent guidelines issued by the French government which prohibit large gatherings put the status of the event at risk. With this in mind, we now feel that postponing the summit is the best and safest option … Rescheduling PBWS allows us to ensure that our world-class conference proceeds without compromise – the venue, schedule and setup remain the same – and we will continue to update our agenda and speaker lineup with exciting new additions.”
Paris Blockchain Week is not alone, other big events like Money20/20 Asia, taking place in Singapore, was originally supposed to take place at the end of last month. There are many other events that have been postponed or simply canceled. Just about all travel is being reviewed.
One of the biggest Fintech events in the US is LendIt Fintech, an annual confab scheduled to take place in Manhattan in the month of May. Organizers are obviously hoping that pandemic tides will reverse at some point in the coming months and we can all get back to business. LendIt did distribute an email indicating they are closely watching the development of the Coronavirus as one would expect.
LendIt said it was proactively planning precautions like instituting a no handshake policy and increasing sanitization protocols at the Javits Center where the event will be held. A full refund option is now available.
But while every gathering, just about anywhere, is now under added scrutiny, this too shall pass. It is more a question of when.
Hopefully, public authorities will have everything under control come May 1st or, perhaps, even sooner.