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Exhibition cancellations (not much to do with that anymore!)


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At the moment the default situation is that all exhibitions are cancelled. We know that no exhibition can take place before 4th July at the earliest but even after that date things don't look promising. To quote from the government guidance about stage 3 - " Some venues which are, by design, crowded and where it may prove difficult to enact distancing may still not be able to re-open safely at this point, or may be able to open safely only in part." So far as I can see our exhibitions will not be allowed to go ahead at the beginning of stage 3 so we can be pretty certain that no exhibitions will be allowed in July. Cancellation announcements for all exhibitions up until August are therefore a mere formality.

 

When we get to the point where an exhibition is going ahead then that will be newsworthy.

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13 hours ago, tc said:

 

It takes a while to contact everyone. We thought it would be courteous to inform those we had invited and would have preferred to then tell all our club members before it went public. 

 

 

Absolutely the correct way to do it!

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14 hours ago, tc said:

 

....

 

I don't quite know how you did it there, but you quoted someone else and attributed it to me. Given that the quoted text was a comment that I had replied to in order to disagree with, I'd appreciate it if you could edit your post to correctly attribute it rather than giving the misleading impression that I made that statement.

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2 hours ago, DutyDruid said:

 

Absolutely the correct way to do it!

Not sure it is. Personally I would rather the announcement had gone live as one hit, followed up with individual contact regarding refunds of stand fees (traders), can you come next year (layouts/demos/traders) and for ticket refunds. I guess like most readers here, sadly, I expected it to be called off, just needed to know to avoid uncertainty, the details to follow.

 

The reverse scenario, of only contacting layouts and stall holders, is  perhaps why another show, and I won’t name it, originally supposed to be on in July, has no publicity anywhere visible on-line saying it is off. It has to be off, the venue is shut, but no information from the host club (who have my sympathy over what I assume is the cancellation) as to whether it is cancelled or, perhaps, provisionally postponed to later in the year.

 

 

Edited by john new
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1 hour ago, john new said:

Not sure it is. Personally I would rather the announcement had gone live as one hit, followed up with individual contact regarding refunds of stand fees (traders), can you come next year (layouts/demos/traders) and for ticket refunds. I guess like most readers here, sadly, I expected it to be called off, just needed to know to avoid uncertainty, the details to follow.

 

I think that those involved have a reasonable expectation of getting advance notice of any announcement like that, unless circumstances really are so compelling that it's not possible. But I agree that it doesn't need to be hugely in advance. And, given that you would expect traders and exhibitors to talk to each other, you do need to notify them all at the same time. Probably the best solution is to send out a single email, bcc'd to every exhibitor and trader (possibly two emails, one for exhibitors and one for traders), telling them you've decided to cancel the event and a public announcement will be made shortly, and that you'll be in touch later to go over individual details of refunds, etc. Then make the public announcement something like 24 hours later, and then go back to following up on individual contacts as necessary.

 

1 hour ago, john new said:

The reverse scenario, of only contacting layouts and stall holders, is  perhaps why another show, and I won’t name it, originally supposed to be on in July, has no publicity anywhere visible on-line saying it is off. It has to be off, the venue is shut, but no information from the host club (who have my sympathy over what I assume is the cancellation) as to whether it is cancelled or, perhaps, provisionally postponed to later in the year.

 

Yes; part of the problem is that some organisers do seem to assume that the general public will somehow find out about the cancellation from other sources. Even if, as with current circumstances, it's a pretty good assumption that a show due to take place in the next few months will be cancelled, it's still good practice and good customer service to make that public yourself rather than expecting the news to come from the venue or via the grapevine.

 

Equally, for shows that are far enough in the future that there's still a reasonable prospect of them going ahead, then a couple of lines on the website saying something like "As things stand, we expect to go ahead, but we will update this website promptly if that changes" helps to avoid speculation as it makes it clear that you are doing your best to communicate.

 

I've had a quick look at a few websites of major autumn/winter shows, some of them do have something like that but others don't. It only takes a moment to add it, so its absence isn't  a good sign. Particularly for shows that are already selling advance tickets, a clear statement of the refund policy if the show does have to be cancelled or postponed is pretty much essential right now.

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54 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

I think that those involved have a reasonable expectation of getting advance notice of any announcement like that, unless circumstances really are so compelling that it's not possible. But I agree that it doesn't need to be hugely in advance. And, given that you would expect traders and exhibitors to talk to each other, you do need to notify them all at the same time. Probably the best solution is to send out a single email, bcc'd to every exhibitor and trader (possibly two emails, one for exhibitors and one for traders), telling them you've decided to cancel the event and a public announcement will be made shortly, and that you'll be in touch later to go over individual details of refunds, etc. Then make the public announcement something like 24 hours later, and then go back to following up on individual contacts as necessary.

 

Can you please take into account that staff in our offices, or not in our offices to be more exact at the moment were having to work with co-organisers within the MRC and arrange the sort of communications that are normally necessary to make (with a gift of foresight to mitigate against someone 'leaking' information prematurely)? Like everyone else they have to deal with an unusual set of circumstances so sitting on the sidelines and delivering judgements that it could have been done differently better isn't particularly helpful or even well received.

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We are both an exhibiting a layout and have a trade stand at GuildEx at the end of August. My dad, who is a guild member, renewed his membership yesterday and asked what the status of the show was. What came from the conversation was that no-one knows. This is probably the same as every show, this year. It would be great to be told what is going on but no-one knows so we can speculate but that is it. As a trader I'm planning that it's going to go ahead and keeping my fingers crossed.

Marc

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Our layout was attending a show in Yorkshire on the weekend  18 / 19 September, and with the recent comments here on RMweb I decided to check the organising society's website a few minutes ago.  The website tells me the show is cancelled.  No notification has been received by me, and until today I was presuming the organisers were waiting to see how the whole health situation would pan out over the next month or so before making a decision.

 

Can I therefore suggest traders and exhibitors check individual club websites for the latest position. (AM)

   

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17 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Can you please take into account that staff in our offices, or not in our offices to be more exact at the moment were having to work with co-organisers within the MRC and arrange the sort of communications that are normally necessary to make (with a gift of foresight to mitigate against someone 'leaking' information prematurely)? Like everyone else they have to deal with an unusual set of circumstances so sitting on the sidelines and delivering judgements that it could have been done differently better isn't particularly helpful or even well received.

 

It's obviously going to be different for different circumstances. My comment was more in response to John New's suggestion that the public announcement should be made first. My suggestion is based on my own experience as an event organiser (not modelling, but on a similar scale in terms of size and participants to a typical club show), so I know it works, but I also know from experience that some people wouldn't think of using bcc (or a mailing list) to communicate with multiple people at once so for them, it's a practical and, hopefully, helpful suggestion. A larger organisation will have their own procedures in place, and I'm not teaching anyone to suck eggs.

 

But, also, that's why we probably need to be a bit more relaxed about things ending up out of sequence. We're in unprecedented circumstances and a lot of this is having to be done on the hoof. It's forgivable if the public announcement is made before every single person involved has had an individual communication, and it's understandable if people who do know in advance talk about it in advance. In the long run, what matters more is that the news gets out to everyone who needs to know.

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2 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

 

 

Equally, for shows that are far enough in the future that there's still a reasonable prospect of them going ahead, then a couple of lines on the website saying something like "As things stand, we expect to go ahead, but we will update this website promptly if that changes" helps to avoid speculation as it makes it clear that you are doing your best to communicate.

 

Wouldn't that just be a statement of the flippin obvious?

 

I'm due to take a layout to an exhibition in August. No news at the moment. I expect it will be cancelled but I will be ready just in case. For most exhibitions the venue owner is the decision maker and not the exhibition organisers. If the venue says it's off then it's off. If the venue says it can go ahead the exhibition organisers would lose any deposit if they decided to cancel so cancelling would be an expensive option .

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1 hour ago, Chris M said:

Wouldn't that just be a statement of the flippin obvious?

 

Not really. no. It's a reassurance to people looking at the website that the organisers are keeping the site up to date. Because if it doesn't say that, but there is a significant probability of cancellation (which there is, for any event on this year's calendar), then people are going to wonder if it's been cancelled but nobody has thought to update the website yet. And the reality is that we know there are some shows where precisely that has happened.

 

Effective communication isn't just about telling people about things that have definitely happened (eg, a show being cancelled), but also about giving people the confidence that you will tell them if and when something does happen.  And sometimes, that means telling them that nothing has happened, but that you will tell them if it does!

 

To give an example of one that's doing it right (rather than picking on one that isn't), the Warley home page has a big section right across the middle which says that they're continuing to make plans for now but won't be selling tickets until they have a clearer idea whether it will go ahead.  Now, to some extent that's obvious, and I'd expect any well run show scheduled for later in the year to be in much the same position. But, still, the fact that they're saying it gives confidence that they aren't adopting a head in the sand approach.

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Isn't speculation a wonderful 'tool'!

 

11 hours ago, Chris M said:

At the moment the default situation is that all exhibitions are cancelled. We know that no exhibition can take place before 4th July at the earliest but even after that date things don't look promising. To quote from the government guidance about stage 3 - " Some venues which are, by design, crowded and where it may prove difficult to enact distancing may still not be able to re-open safely at this point, or may be able to open safely only in part." So far as I can see our exhibitions will not be allowed to go ahead at the beginning of stage 3 so we can be pretty certain that no exhibitions will be allowed in July. Cancellation announcements for all exhibitions up until August are therefore a mere formality.

 

When we get to the point where an exhibition is going ahead then that will be newsworthy.

 

My understanding is that furlough has been extended until October. What effect / influence will this have on the situation?

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39 minutes ago, JohnDMJ said:

Isn't speculation a wonderful 'tool'!

 

 

My understanding is that furlough has been extended until October. What effect / influence will this have on the situation?

The furlough extension has a few conditions with from what ive read a sliding scale of payments so it may alter things by then BUT its a long time between then and now so, and as we all know alot can change.

 

Everyone has thier own ideas on how to let everyone know and having had to cancel a show my self, the right way is to contact each person indavidually and just put not for public knowlage as the host will be making the announcement on X day on emails and if its a phone call then just mention it.

 

Several of the shows that I was due to attend this year that have cancelled have done just that and i have always asked is it ok to post it up on layout/group pages and have in all cases been given a time and date which it was safe to do so. I was asked at the same time if i would be able to attend next year or a following year.

 

It's the decent thing to do respecting the club/hosts wishes and better for everyone consernded. The problem in todays world is lots of people want to be the first to post it up no matter what the cost.

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It's not just exhibition cancellations which have had to deal with the news being 'leaked' - Reading and Leeds Festivals faced a similar situation recently when an MP blogged that Leeds was cancelled before the organisers had been able to put the official announcement out (again, they may well have been attempting to contact performers first), leading to the cancellations having to be announced earlier than the organisers may have wished.

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I hate to sound pessimistic, but I don't really envisage events similar to model railway shows as we know them being revived while social distancing remains in force.

 

The conditions necessary for it to be eased significantly are still some way off and It will, I think, require a vaccination programme to be well advanced before it can cease altogether.

 

Realistically, I can't see that happening in much less than twelve months from now.

 

John

 

 

Edited by Dunsignalling
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RailexNE 2020 on North Tyneside Cancelled

 

After the weekends announcement, I along with a majority of the clubs Committee took the decsion to cancel this years show in mid July.

I have been in touch with all Exhibitors and traders who are understanding but disapointed none the less. 

 

Hopefully we can get on with 2021.

RailexNE 2020 Cancelled.jpg

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8 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

I hate to sound pessimistic, but I don't really envisage events similar to model railway shows as we know them being revived while social distancing remains in force.

 

The conditions necessary for it to be eased significantly are still some way off and It will, I think, require a vaccination programme to be well advanced before it can cease altogether.

 

Realistically, I can't see that happening in much less than twelve months from now.

 

John

 

 

Agree (sadly)  see this quote which is from a reputable source:-

 

”The candidate vaccine is expected to enter clinical trials in the second half of 2020 and to be available by the second half of 2021.”

 

Source = last few lines from this report - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52659510 [accessed today]

 

Update - the better news as stated by Phil in the next post - other vaccine options are further up the progress line than the one quoted and linked to in the news item above.

 

The key is we need to keep cheerful, and keep modelling or doing other railway related activities.

 

Edited by john new
Added the update.
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3 hours ago, john new said:

Agree (sadly)  see this quote which is from a reputable source:-

 

”The candidate vaccine is expected to enter clinical trials in the second half of 2020 and to be available by the second half of 2021.”

 

Source = last few lines from this report - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52659510 [accessed today]

 

There are many vaccines under test, this is just one of them. The people in Oxford went to human trials weeks ago with the anticipation of some results in the autumn. A deal has already been struck for manufacturing. My limited understanding is that we may end up with several vaccines of different efficacy.

 

I suspect that even if there was a lake full of the stuff, the challenge would be persuading people to be vaccinated. Even mention on Twitter seems to bring out the rabid anti-vaxers. (And no, this isn't the place to discuss the merits or otherwise of vaccine).

 

Basically, we don't know, so there's no point in trying to trump each other with pessimistic predictions of when shows will resume.

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19 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

Basically, we don't know, so there's no point in trying to trump each other with pessimistic predictions of when shows will resume.

Yep and why not get on with some actual modelling as in the far more optimistic SI thread so there are even more cracking new layouts to see once we know what’s happening :)

 

 


I just wasted half the morning finding the most complicated way possible not to regauge a D&RGW gondola. The second one took five mins! :maninlove:

 

So my modelling demo table looked busy and would have looked very industrious at a show ;) I’m now off to the ‘canteen’ for cake(S). 

 

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Meanwhile, back at my ranch, so far..

 

9 coaches built, painted, lined and numbered

3l

 Locomotives repaired

1 new motor and gearbox fitted..

 

Work room tidied.

 

My stock boxes are sorted and ready to go when we next take any of our layouts to a show.. couplings have been tested and tweaked..(thanks to Mike Edge).

 

Do not get hung up on vaccines ..some of the common cold is brought about by a coronavirus...no vaccine for that one

 

Think positive...stop all the defeatist attitude..Exhibitions will restart when it is safe to do so, personal choice can be made by attendees.

 

Get some modelling done!

Baz

Edited by Barry O
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9 minutes ago, 2mmMark said:

might this help with social distancing at exhibitions

 

Not in the current climate, there'd be immeasurable resistance.

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