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

In spite of this concentration of events, industry organisations are looking forward to reconnect after a prolonged period of lockdown, social distancing and accelerated use of videoconferencing and online collaboration tools. Finat, who were the first to reschedule one of their events, their renowned biennial technical seminar early March, is getting ready to open up again.

Chris Ellison, president, Finat, said, “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. 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.”

He added, “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, videoconferences 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:

2-4 December 2020: The Technical Seminar.

2-4 June 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’), exact dates to be announced.