We're Moving to 2021
Hey friends,
We’ve decided to move Create Upstate ADK from October 5-7, 2020 to October 4-6, 2021.
As we’ve gained your trust over the years, we feel you should know how we got here:
The past few weeks have been hard for so many of us. Admittedly, Create Upstate wasn’t on the front of our minds when the Coronavirus news hit. Even as we saw conference after conference cancel their events, we maintained a sense of confidence that we had ample time to see if things changed course, given CU ADK was still more than six months away.
As we know, things certainly haven’t changed course in a positive way, which is why we’re opting to move the event to 2021. We had so wished for CU ADK to be one of the things that could help bring our community together towards the end of the year, but there’s a few reasons why it was prudent to postpone the event:
- We knew from the start that ADK is/was going to be an expensive event to run. Frankly, we don’t have confidence we’d get the kind of financial commitments from sponsors and attendees we need during a time where their resources are going towards more important things. Heck, we wouldn’t feel right even asking.
- Even in the case a few of you were to order tickets now, the indefinite nature of this health crisis makes it difficult for us to offer refunds. Anyone who purchased airline tickets pre-Coronavirus knows how jerky it feels to not get refunded during a pandemic. Planning an event means needing to spend ticket money well in advance of said event—we couldn’t do that in good conscience.
- Our agreement with our venue would only get more difficult to adjust the closer to the event we got. We’re thankful they’ve agreed to allow us to move the event to 2021.
If those reasons all sound financially motivated, that’s true. Simply put, if we proceeded with the event and we didn’t get the commitments necessary, our team would need a truckload of those stimulus checks to pay for an event that might not even be allowed to happen.
We’ve never been so excited for a CU. That said, we couldn’t imagine spending the next six months anxious if we could even have it. If you know us, you know we go to great lengths to put on an event worth attending. So, while we may have to wait longer than we’d like, we’re going to have it at a more reliable time.
If you’re disappointed with this news, you’re not alone. You can email or tweet us anytime—we’d love to commiserate with you. On the flipside, we’re committed to doing CU ADK justice in 2021, and we’ve already re-upped our speakers. With an additional year to plan this, you know it’ll be awesome.
Thank you for all your support thus far—it means a ton to us. We’d love to hear from you on any thoughts or ideas you have that’ll get us to October 2021 quickly.
Stay safe!
Team CU
What's Next?
We're still putting together plans for 2021. For now, make sure to sign up for updates below and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.