The Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT) said today, Sept. 8, that its annual conference and trade show scheduled for January 2021 in Spokane, Wash., will not be held in person due to ongoing public health concerns and Washington state’s current restrictions on large group gatherings that may still be in place come January.
ACCT said it will transition to a fully virtual event, which the staff had already been preparing for in anticipation of not having an in-person conference. The association is looking for feedback from industry members through a quick survey. The results will help the ACCT staff to best prepare for the 2021 virtual conference. TAKE THE SURVEY HERE.
The entire announcement from ACCT:
Our host venues, public health officials and the Spokane community have informed us that they do not feel confident about hosting our conference in January 2021 due to ongoing public health and safety concerns. Restrictions on large group gatherings in the state of Washington are still in place, and there remains a great amount of uncertainty about when those restrictions will eventually be lifted.
As a result of that decision, we are transitioning to a fully virtual event! Fortunately, the ACCT staff have been anticipating and preparing for this for the past several weeks. We have been talking to other organizations who have already made the decision to go virtual with their events, we’ve been exploring various virtual event platforms, and gathering other information about how to structure and deliver the best possible experience for our attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors.
One of the main benefits of transitioning to a fully virtual event will be the greatly reduced cost of attendance (i.e., travel, lodging and meals), as you will be able to join us from the comfort of your home! We’re also extremely excited about what this means for our international community as one of the largest barriers to their participation has been travel costs.
The Workshop Crew is working hard to make sure this pivot to a virtual conference will be a great continuing education and networking event for our community. If you submitted a workshop proposal for 2021, know that we are reassessing in light of the switch to virtual and will be in communication with you about next steps. We would love to hear your questions and comments through this live questionnaire.
