While a large part of the world is still in lockdown and the search for a vaccine continues, industries and communities are eagerly planning to resume their activities, meetings and events beyond the COVID-19 healthcare crisis.

A few weeks ago, Tarsus announced its rescheduled calendar of label industry conferences and exhibitions for the upcoming two years. Together with other rescheduled packaging industry events, assuming the virus does not re-emerge, 2021 is promising to be a busy year in terms of dedicated industry events.

In spite of this concentration of events, industry organizations are looking forward to reconnect after a prolonged period of lockdown, social distancing and accelerated use of video conferencing and online collaboration tools. FINAT, which was one of the first to reschedule its events – the biennial Technical Seminar early March – is getting ready to open up again.

“The decision to postpone the seminar was a tough one, as this had to be taken one week before the event, when the COVID-19 virus had just emerged in Europe and WHO had not declared the pandemic yet,” says Chris Ellison, FINAT president. “We felt sorry for our friends in the technical committee, the speakers, our sponsors and, last but not least, our members who were getting ready for an excellent week of learning and networking.

“If there is anything positive to take out of this lockdown period, the past few months have made us aware that associations like FINAT are a critical factor in keeping international communities connected. While much of the association work has continued online and we have remained in contact with our members via regular web briefings, video conferences cannot replicate the need of human beings to meet and interact face to face. We are therefore desperately looking forward to ‘reboot’ our meetings and events side of the business. Fingers crossed, hopefully already at the beginning of December this year, albeit in a ‘Covid proof’ setting.”

FINAT has provisionally scheduled its next two international events for December 2-4, 2020, (the Technical Seminar) and June 2-4, 2021 (the European Label Forum). Due to a special COVID-19 arrangement, both events will take place in Barcelona. The European Label Forum 2022 will be held in Rome (the original venue for this year’s “ELF”), with exact dates to be announced.

“For FINAT, 2021 is another Labelexpo Europe year, but especially in the first half of 2021, there will be a lot of competition for our events from exhibitions like Interpack in February, Labelexpo Americas in March, and drupa in April, all rescheduled from 2020,” adds Ellison. “Of course, Labelexpo is the embedded label industry expo and its international flagship is Labelexpo Europe in Brussels at the end of September. With regards to the Labelexpo events outside Europe in Chicago and Shanghai, we are convinced that they fulfil an important need in the regions concerned, especially since global travelling is expected to still be hit in 2021. If these Labelexpo shows would not take place, our peers in these regions would have no alternative.”