Back in March, we asked members to go ahead and book Portland for July, and we meant it at the time. This week the Events Committee made the call we'd been putting off: the 2020 ICF Annual Conference will not be held in person. It's moving fully online, still the week of July 21st, and we wanted members to hear the reasoning directly rather than piece it together from a form letter.
We were not alone in reaching this point. Several of the larger craft-cheese gatherings originally planned for this summer, including at least one other major national conference that had also picked Portland for July, announced cancellations of their in-person events over the past few weeks. Travel that felt merely uncertain in early March looks, by late April, like something we can't responsibly ask members and volunteer presenters to plan around. Hotel blocks are being released; anyone who already booked a room through our conference code should have gotten a cancellation notice, and if you haven't, contact the Events Committee directly rather than your hotel.
What actually stays the same
The program committee is keeping the session lineup built from the proposals members sent in through April, almost entirely intact. The four tracks — hands-on craft, business and margin, regulatory and food safety, and member case studies — are still the backbone of the schedule. Presenters accepted for an in-person slot are being asked whether they can adapt to a recorded or live-streamed format instead, and most have said yes. A handful of hands-on demonstrations that depended on a shared kitchen or judging room don't translate to a screen, and those are being reworked into shorter video walkthroughs rather than dropped outright.
The competition schedule is the one piece we're still finalizing. Judging by mail and video rather than in a shared room is workable for most categories, and we'll have specifics for entrants within the next couple of weeks. If you were planning to enter and judge in person, hang onto your submission — we are not asking anyone to resubmit.
What changes for you
Registration fees are being adjusted downward to reflect a program that no longer includes a venue, meals, or a trade-show floor; anyone who already registered at the in-person rate will be refunded the difference automatically, no action needed on your end. If you registered and would rather have a full refund than attend the virtual event, the portal has a straightforward cancellation option this week — we'd rather you ask for your money back cleanly than feel obligated to log in out of guilt.
For members who were dreading the travel this year anyway — new parents, members without the staff coverage to leave a creamery for four days, anyone managing a health concern — this format removes a real barrier, and a few of you have already told us as much. That's a genuine upside buried inside a decision none of us wanted to make.
We know a screen is not Portland, and we're not going to pretend the two are equivalent. What we can promise is a full schedule, real sessions, and a competition that still runs. Questions about the shift go to the Events Committee; questions about your own registration go through the member portal.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.