Conferences Plot a Comeback Even Before Vaccines Are Widely Distributed (bloomberg.com) 65
It could take a while before the handshake comes back, if it ever does. Business conferences, however, are set to restart in the U.S. the moment health code allows. And despite uncertainty around when exactly that will be, convention organizers are holding out hope -- and event space -- for a possible return in the coming weeks. From a report: One of those optimists is Peter Diamandis. He convened some of his employees at their office in Culver City, California, last Wednesday for a low-key, in-person holiday gathering. There, Diamandis said his flagship annual conference, Abundance 360, was still on for late January in Malibu, California, according to a person familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified. It will feature seminars on technology and entrepreneurialism, as well as a video address from Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff. Diamandis said last week that the company was taking precautions to hold the event safely. Anyone attending in person would have to take a nose-swab test 72 hours before arrival and each day during the conference itself. He was closely tracking infection rates and regulatory guidance, he said. "Many of our members definitely want to get together in person (if possible)," he wrote in an email to Bloomberg.
One day later, though, Diamandis changed his mind. The company canceled the in-person program for most people scheduled to attend Abundance 360, according to a message to staff reviewed by Bloomberg. The summit will be limited to about 16 people who paid $30,000 for special events and coaching, internal documents show. (Although that, too, could be cancelled depending on the health situation, Diamandis wrote in an email to Bloomberg.) Everyone else will get access to online programs. Of the many important things lost this year, conferences are pretty far down the list. But for the organizations that put on the events, the coronavirus pandemic has severely altered their operations. Cancellations in the U.S. this year will cost as much as $22 billion, according to estimates from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, a trade group. Most conferences are sticking to online-only through early next year, including CES, the largest technology industry conference typically held in January, or are postponing until the second half of the year, said Heather Keenan, president of Key Events, a meeting and events-planning firm. Some are exploring hybrid events with the choice of online or in person starting in May, she said.
One day later, though, Diamandis changed his mind. The company canceled the in-person program for most people scheduled to attend Abundance 360, according to a message to staff reviewed by Bloomberg. The summit will be limited to about 16 people who paid $30,000 for special events and coaching, internal documents show. (Although that, too, could be cancelled depending on the health situation, Diamandis wrote in an email to Bloomberg.) Everyone else will get access to online programs. Of the many important things lost this year, conferences are pretty far down the list. But for the organizations that put on the events, the coronavirus pandemic has severely altered their operations. Cancellations in the U.S. this year will cost as much as $22 billion, according to estimates from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, a trade group. Most conferences are sticking to online-only through early next year, including CES, the largest technology industry conference typically held in January, or are postponing until the second half of the year, said Heather Keenan, president of Key Events, a meeting and events-planning firm. Some are exploring hybrid events with the choice of online or in person starting in May, she said.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Stupidity (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As I understood some of the arguments Trump made, he did not believe the Feds had the authority to close businesses and restrict travel within the states. Obviously they can make recommendations and influence governors and the like, but they couldn't themselves stop a state from allowing a business conference.
As it stands there never was anything that could reasonably be called a "lockdown" anywhere in the US or Europe. The interpre
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How are you going to make people comply when government and military are swamped with running food deliveries?
You have less than 1.5m army personal and about 700k law enforcement, and you want them to deliver food to 330m people in the USA. That's not enough people bring everyone food. Food then doesn't grow on military bases, but you need farmers, workers, drivers, repairmen and managers doing their jobs, but since they're locked in, too, will you not be able to keep the supply up. You will also need to ke
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the parent's post is a bit absurd, and certainly not what anyone talking about "circuit breaker" lockdowns means, although at the height of the outbreak in Italy, Italian authorities went almost that far. Tell me, does your right to leave your house override the rights of other people? Just how expansive do you believe your rights are. For instance, do you feel if you have to take a piss (which is, after all, a biological necessity), you can just whip it out on the street or in my livingroom and rel
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you had a functioning brain cell, you would understand the idiocy in the 'measures' described in the OP. Let's look at some of the more obvious ones:
No food production or transportation, for 2 months (minimum)
No medicine, personal hygiene, or cleaning product production or transportation for 2 months (minimum)
No medical services for 2 months (minimum)
No emergency services (fire, police)
No heating fuel delivery for 2 months
Your pipes freeze and burst? Too bad, you can sit in your house without water for
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
You guys are retarded if you really believe that.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, yeah, that's not ever going to happen in the US. For starters, the president doesn't have the authority to enact half that bullshit, and with our current house and senate there would be a shit-show of epic proportions if he even so much as breathed a hint towards what you're proposing. On top of that, the adamant red state governors would flat out refuse to allow any of that to go down without a massive fight. There is a zero percent chance you'd get cooperation from even the half of the country that
Re: (Score:2)
Or, we could just get vaccinated.
Re: (Score:2)
Why take the easy way out when we could needlessly bludgeon our economy to death?
Re: (Score:1)
The one thing different biden said he will be doing is to ask the public to wear a mask for 100 days.
Re: (Score:2)
None before 2022 (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Your choice whether you want to do things the easy way, or the hard way.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, there are significant doubts that a natural infection produces any long lasting immunity.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Because it sounds like at this point most people are much more likely to feel ill and be uncomfortable for a couple days getting the vaccine vs having something like 95% odds of not even realizing they have COVID-19.
I have no idea where you got that idea, but it's wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
50% of the "tested positive population" has no symptoms. Given most people only get a test in the fist place because they have symptoms that means the vast vast vast majority of people infected with COVID have no symptoms. A large portion of the rest have symptoms so slight its mistaken for a cold.
No COVID isn't a 'hoax' it causes server illness in a not insignificant number of people. However the large number of people we see with sever illness is because its so contagious a so many people are infected,
Re: (Score:2)
Specifically, why do you think "people are... likely to feel ill and be uncomfortable for a couple days getting the vaccine?"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The vaccine does not prevent infection. It just reduces the effects. In other words - "not even realizing they have COVID-19".
Since we're being pedantic, there's a difference between having SARS-COV2 in your system and having COVID-19. COVID is the disease caused by the virus. If you're vaccinated, you're - in principle - immune to the effects of the virus because your immune system is already trained to prevent SARS-COV2 from multiplying until you have disease effects.
The only way to not have SARS-COV2 at all is to avoid contamination/contact. But vaccination does effectively prevent the disease, not merely reduce its effect
Re: (Score:2)
If that is the case, most people need to read more about longer term effects from Covid19.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I hate conferences with every fiber of my being. If I never have to go to another one, I'll be as pleased as punch. I'll tolerate a two hour Zoom meeting, where at least I can turn the camera off to grab a coffee.
Re: (Score:2)
very doubtful COVID-19 will be contained even with the 2 vaccines available.
Whats the point of a vaccine then?
At least in America you would have to be nuts (Score:5, Interesting)
Once again if you want our dollars and our business you need to pressure the government to fix this mess. So far they're just not doing it.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you got the vaccine. Then you go to the conference and don't worry about spreading it to other people.
Re: (Score:3)
Being immune doesn't mean you won't catch the virus from an infected person and give it to others, it means you clear it out faster than symptoms appear because you have T-cells and antibodies ready to work. In other words, you're an asymptomatic spreader for a short while.
Re: (Score:1)
You left out the obvious solution approach: Vaccines AND masks AND social distancing. Widespread antibody testing would also help in assessing the state of the pandemic and could have been integrated into routine blood work. But wasn't.
But you're talking about a really stupid country here. (At least the Subject is.) They are now spreading insane rumors about capped needles when politicians get vaccinated. Why the phuck would they cap a needle? Just inject saline solution. What the heck is supposed to be a "
Re: (Score:2)
What the heck is supposed to be a "capped" needle anyway?
LOL the cap is where they keep the computer chip.
Re: (Score:2)
Check out the teardown video. The cap is just a battery to keep the chips charged to 100% until time of injection. Sort of like earbuds that charge in the case. There's dozens of chips suspended in fluid in the cylinder, all coded identically with each syringe having a unique code. If a chip isn't 100% charged then it might not have time attach to your nervous system where it can draw power until the host dies.
Re: (Score:2)
If I hadn't blocked HWN3BS (He Whose Name Need Not Be Spoken) I would tweet that too him with your handle and you might get retweeted into infamy by HWN3BS of the mighty tweet.
And HWN3BS's fans would believe it, too.
Re: (Score:2)
You've never had a friend in the healthcare industry sobbing onto your shoulder in fear, because they got a needlestick injury at work today, and didn't want to die of AIDS?
That's 'what the heck a "capped" needle is for' - not killing medical workers in workplace accidents. Or even worse - scaring them into flipping burgers after 6 years of government-funded training and a second terrifying needlestick injury and 3 months of terror waiting for the te
Re: (Score:2)
It sound like you're talking about a way to dispose of needles (and not just hypodermics) safely. That's not the context here. The lunatics are claiming that the politicians and doctors didn't really get injections of the vaccine, but were just faking it for TV. But they aren't going to be fooled!
My point is that it would be insane to tamper with the needles to fake the injections. Just put saline in the bottle and inject away.
The vaccine isn't a panacea, but it's a good thing. Ditto masks, ditto washing ha
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, your original comment wasn't clear, but lack of clarity is what you have to expect in the crazy stuff that is coming from the conspiracy theorists. I actually know a Q believer who (with only the slightest encouragement) rants (apparently sincerely) about the tracking microchips hidden in the vaccine injections.
I spent some time trying to figure out how that way of thinking works, but I never got much insight into it. There is a religious component in the susceptibility of this particular Qanon follow
Re: (Score:2)
40% of Americans are on record as refusing to vaccinate, and the same percentage likely won't wear masks
It's a strange logic:
1. I refuse the vaccination because it might contain a microchip
2. I refuse to wear a mask and go around shopping malls etc. breathing whatever alien germs happen to be flying around
If you're skeptical about putting foreign objects into your body, isn't that more of a reason to wear a mask? The mask could be like the tinfoil hat of the 2020s.
Personally, I have good reason to believe that air in shopping malls is laced with nanites that make us consume more. So I always wear a mas
Handshakes (Score:1)
Do you ever leave your cubicle? (Score:2)
It never went away.
Re: (Score:1)