In the wake of a single person presumptively testing positive for Coronavirus and the cancellation of the World Petrochemical Conference, the HPBA is standing by New Orleans and putting on their show
"The Hearth, Patio and Barbeque Expo is North America's largest event dedicated to indoor/outdoor living," says Kelly VanDermark, Vice President of Expositions and Events with HPBA.
The decision to resist canceling and to stay on track came to a vote of the Associations stakeholders as late as last Friday.
"The decision was not taken lightly," VanDermark says. "The Executive Committee voted to move forward."
VanDermark says she's seen a lot of events and always expects last-minute issues: "But this was a unique situation this year I've never been faced with," VanDermark says. "The concern that's out there with the virus, we've tried to do everything we can to make sure we've beefed up our effort and put our folks at ease to attend."
VanDermark says the assistance she received from the event planners and marketing representatives from New Orleans and Company was highly valuable.
"They helped with our marketing, they went out with Facebook ads to get local hearth, patio, and barbeque dealers to be aware of the show and hope to attend."
But it was N.O.&Co's work with Morial Convention Center, ensuring the safety of attendees that VanDermark was really grateful for receiving: "On top of helping us with safety measures beefed up and in place at [Morial Convention] Center, I cannot speak highly enough of the help that they provided."
For VanDermark, HPBA and New Orleans & Company, seeing this exhibition through is very important at these unstable times. Last week I saw the cancellation of the World Petrochemical Conference at the Hilton Riverside. That one cancellation left Hilton and other hoteliers scrambling to fill 1800 rooms with just three days advance notice.
Even though HPBA is a go, VanDermark says some people they were expecting just can't make it: "We are expecting [attendance] to be down and we are expecting it to be from our international participants."
"Due to travel advisories and restrictions, we had a number of Chinese manufacturers drop out."
The Hearth, Patio and Barbeque Expo 2020 run March 11-through-14 at the Morial Convention Center.
