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As I recall, the organizer was rather slow to postpone the show from April, amidst all the public speculation about were they or weren't they. As I recall from the email I received at the time advising me of the new date, they did not mention in their email an option for refunds in the event the new date conflicted with a ticket holder's schedule. As I also recall, you posted a similar article about Axpona needing to reschedule, and the lack of any information forthcoming. I said at the time they should either hold the event in April (which obviously, in hindsight, proved impossible) or cancel it altogether, because if the virus situation was bad enough to cancel the show in April, the virus situation would never be resolved enough by August, and so it would make more sense to simply cancel.
Now that I am able to read the above agreement between the exhibitors and JD Events, it is fairly clear to me there is a significant contractual difference between the event being canceled versus postponed. Under the contract, the latter does not provide for return of funds to the exhibitor. Unless there is another clause detailing what occurs between the parties in the event it is canceled, my educated guess is that JD Events is hesitant to cancel the event.
I'm not intimately familiar with the virus situation in Illinois, and the Governor's position thereon, but this may be out of JD Events' hands. If so, my guess is money is coming back, or, more likely, JD Events proffers a credit for next year's event. On the other hand, if Axpona is permitted to legally move forward in Illinois, but an exhibitor in another jurisdiction cannot attend due to legal restrictions in their jurisdiction, what does JD Events do?
But I agree, they should really get ahead of this. They are the biggest show, in what may be the largest market outside of NYC currently hosting shows, and so it behooves everyone to sit down and figure out which exhibitors are not inclined to exhibit, which are, and then reach out to attendees and figure out a head count of how many still intend to make the trip.
That is a lot of information to accumulate in such a short period of time. Hopefully they get cracking and figure it out.