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The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has announced that due to coronavirus concerns, it is postponing its largest European trade show, World of Coffee, to Oct. 15-17 in Warsaw, Poland.
The show and related events, including several World Coffee Championships, were originally scheduled to take place in June. Taking place in a different European host city each year, World of Coffee attracted some 240 exhibitors and nearly 11,000 attendees last year, according to the organization.
On Wednesday, the SCA announced that it was working with host venues in an attempt to postpone the show. It said the same for its largest North American event, the Specialty Coffee Expo, which is still scheduled to take place April 23-26 in Portland, Oregon.
The SCA released an announcement on World of Coffee’s postponement just moments ago, signed by CEO Yannis Apostolopoulos. Here it is in full:
As announced on March 11, the Specialty Coffee Association has been working with our partner venue in Poland to review options for postponing World of Coffee (WOC) in response to the global COVID-19 outbreak.
Today, we are announcing an agreement with our partners at PTAK Warsaw Expo to postpone World of Coffee to October 15-17, 2020, the only dates available in 2020.
We have informed all of our exhibitors and visitors via email, and our exhibitions team will be sharing more information next week. We’d like to thank the team at PTAK for their help in rescheduling our event and demonstrating their commitment to the health of our community.
World of Coffee Warsaw will continue to host the 2020 World Coffee Roasting, Latte Art, Coffee in Good Spirits, and Cup Tasters Championships as well as the Cezve/Ibrik Championship. These competitions will be postponed to the new October 15–17 dates, with the World Coffee Events team continuing to work with competitors, judges, and licensed WCE Competition Bodies to address the challenges that COVID-19 presents. Any competitors, volunteers, or judges who anticipate issues participating during the new dates should get in contact with WCE directly by emailing [email protected].
We send a sincere thank you to all of our partners, sponsors, exhibitors, attendees, and volunteers for their patience as we work to adapt and find solutions to the rapidly changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a reminder, the 2020 Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE), featuring the 2020 World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup, has been postponed by the show organizers to November 3-6, 2020. Read the announcement published on March 11, 2020.
We continue our conversations with our partners at the Oregon Convention Center (OCC) and Travel Portland to review options for postponing Re:co Symposium and the Specialty Coffee Expo. The state of Oregon has canceled public gatherings of over 250 people until April 8. We will continue to share updates on our website as they become available.
We have received many messages of support from members of the specialty coffee community around the world, for which we’re very thankful, and also some new questions, to which we hope to respond as soon as possible.
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