It’s been an incredibly tough week for our events team. The toughest week I daresay we’ve ever encountered in all of our years organising events. With a tough week came decisions that no team ever wants to make. The result of this is that we have taken the decision to cancel TestBash Detroit 2020.
This is not a decision we have taken lightly. We’ve been monitoring the global situation for all of our TestBash locations closely every day and updating our risk assessments to ensure that to proceed would be safe for everyone involved. As we released on Monday, we are still confident that our risk assessment for all of our events is an effective course of action.
Why Cancel Detroit?
As I’m sure you are aware, the world is facing a tough challenge right now. And while there are differing views of the dangers of COVID-19, the impact it’s having cannot be ignored. We are seeing speaker cancellations, attendee cancellations, forced cancellations due to travel bans, flight cancellations, the fear of forced or self-isolation, impact on sales, increased costs and a whole lot more.
We’ve seen 30% of our speakers cancel, and 30% of the attendance cancel in the recent days, and I’ve no doubt more would have followed. When you combine those with all factors above, TestBash Detroit has become untenable, and the only sensible thing to do, as much as it hurts us, is to cancel the event.
Speaker or Attendees
If you are reading this and were scheduled to talk or attend TestBash Detroit, please check the email used to purchase your tickets for actions you need to take.
What about your other events?
As things stand right now, Brighton and the Netherlands are both going ahead. As per our COVID-19 update, we will continue to assess these locations.
