We are “full speed ahead” in terms of planning and hosting in Knoxville this June, and recommend that all attendees book flights at their earliest convenience with airlines that have lifted their change and cancellation fees. Attending retailers are currently filling out their schedule requests and we will likely be sending out details on the initial requests next week.
In equal measure, we are also working to build out contingency plans that serve all attendees. Grassroots has set the first week of May as a final deadline to announce any major changes, as that is when vendors would need to start shipping goods to the advance warehouse. That early May time frame would also provide us with the necessary window to build out digital alternatives to a disrupted show, centered around online meetings//presentations with the support of digital workbooks. Online options for this process already exist in the marketplace, and we are evaluating all the options we can as part of our planning.
We will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation and our primary goal is to ensure the health of all attendees at Connect. We will be pushing another update on or around March 25th. A history of our updates sent to this community will be updated regularly on the link below, please bookmark it, and share with anyone in your organization looking for details on our plans for June.
Best,
Grassroots Staff