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Nats 2020 Update: May 25th


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As of today, Monday, May 25th, the IPMS/USA 2020 National Convention is still very much a go. I am in contact with the Embassy Suites and they are gearing up to get their staff back in place not just for our convention but others in June…well over a month before ours. The guidance that we are following is from the state of Texas: https://gov.texas.gov/organization/opentexas. Right now, the state is in the process of slowly “opening up” and we fully expect, while things will not be back to the “old normal”, they will be of a condition that we will be able to hold a convention.

Tours: The two tours we were offering: one to San Antonio and The Alamo and the other the Fredericksburg, TX, are now cancelled. There is too much uncertainty with the destinations of the tours and along with poor ticket sales, have forced us to make this decision. While we have a fairly certain control over the convention venue the same cannot be said for the tour destinations…especially The Alamo as it remains closed with no opening date announced. For those that have purchased tickets we have started the refund process with the IPMS/USA Home Office and you will see refunds soon. I have taken the links to purchase tour tickets down from the Nats 2020 website and the same has been done in the IPMS/USA web-store.

Vendors: while we have received a few vendor cancellations we still have a healthy vendor attendance with 77 unique vendors and 291 tables paid for or reserved. I fully recognize many of the overseas vendors are in more of a pickle to decide whether to come or not…we will honor refunds for their tables if they decide that the trip is too challenging in the next couple of months. My authority (knowledge-wise) on who is coming and who isn’t is with our team’s vendor coordinator, Craig Gregory. Our website was updated today by me with all the current attending vendors as well as an updated vendor floor-plan.

Registration: We are extending pre-registration (a discount of $10) to the right with a new deadline of June 30th. This will give the convention registration team, led by Dick Montgomery, time to sort out all the pre-registrants and ensure their packets are good to go by the start of the convention.

Awards: We now have several special awards listed on the Nats 2020 website. These can be viewed here: www.nats2020.com/contest_pages/theme.html.  As with past conventions these are judged outside of the normal IPMS NCC judging that occurs Friday night. If you have a special award that you or your chapter would like to present please get with our awards coordinator, Rob Booth: rbooth@hctc.net.

We are still seeking award sponsors. Each category is $88 to sponsor and can be purchased via the IPMS web-store: https://www.shopipmsusa.org/product-p/natsreg-2020-award-category.htm. Choose you or your club’s top 3 choices and state this in the comment box in the web-store item. A list of the contest categories with purchased sponsorships (i.e., those already claimed) can be viewed here: http://www.nats2020.com/contest_pages/categories.html. If you see a mistake on this page please reach out to me at director.nats2020@gmail.com and I will get with our awards coordinator, Rob Booth, and fix the issue.

I urge any of you that have not purchased pre-registrations or banquet tickets (if you intend to attend the banquet) to please do so at your nearest convenience. This will help the convention planning team determine numbers regarding large, important purchases (pins, decals, etc.) that we have to make in June in order to make sure everything is in-place by late July. As I have mentioned in my last update, everything related to the convention is refundable from IPMS/USA in the event we are forced to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances (re-imposed government restrictions, for example) in the next couple of months.  

As usual, please feel free to reach out to me with any questions you may have: director.nats2020@gmail.com

Len Pilhofer

IPMS# 49932

Director, IPMS/USA National Convention 2020

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Greetings Mike,

So far, with regards to the banquet, my discussions with the Embassy Suites General Manager have focused appropriate seat spacing within the banquet room. This means perhaps less people per round table. However, let me stress that as of right now these are all just discussions as we are waiting to see what the exact restrictions are come the time of the convention. We'll make a final decision about 30 days out...which is less than a month from now. A "Food and Drink Minimum" is part of the contract with the hotel that we are going to attempt to meet but given the COVID-19 situation both myself and GM have agreed to make something work. No exact details on this yet...just discussions. Restrictions in-place by the state of Texas are driving our final decisions...and these restrictions are changing (i.e., opening up) almost weekly. 

-Len

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