Hello everyone—

Today we have some disappointing, but long expected, news. Due to the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 global pandemic, we are cancelling KCDC 2020. We will return next year, all of us, hopefully bigger, better, and stronger than ever, having fought through this uniquely challenging moment in history and coming out on the other side.

Before we dive into the rest of this message, which may run a bit long, here's the most important bit you need to note. Next year's dates are already booked. So mark your calendars:

Got that written down? Awesome! Now then...

Many of you have likely assumed this cancellation notice would be coming. And maybe some of you are even wondering why it has taken until now to send out the news? In the interest of transparency to our friends, and because of the respect we hold for all of you, we want to offer a bit of a peek behind the curtains.

There have been a handful of important considerations that we needed to tackle before making anything official.

First, we had to consider our realistic options. Should we cancel? Or maybe just postpone for later in 2020? Should we try to make KCDC a virtual event?

Postponement would be the wrong decision because fall and early winter already have many important events, and others have rescheduled for then, as well. Why add to that and create more unneeded "competition" or dilution of talent for speakers and sponsors? We're all one global community, so let's not make it harder for us and others to recover.

Regarding a virtualized KCDC, while we respect the events going that route, we decided it was not for us. So much of the character of our event is about the one-on-one, face-to-face interaction of everyone involved—our speakers, our corporate partners, our attendees, and even our families! After a lot of internal discussion, we concluded we could not do proper justice to KCDC as a digital-only event.

Second, and honestly even more important, we had to ensure the future viability and financial security of KCDC beyond the current crisis. We were already under contract with several key vendors. For an event of our size, the penalties for cancellation are quite substantial, posing an existential risk to KCDC's future. It has taken several weeks to coordinate a resolution with everyone, but we are now in a good place. And for that we are extremely thankful.

Finally, we wanted to lock up next year's dates before shutting down this year. By having 2021 planned, we are able to have the peace of mind—for ourselves and for our speakers and sponsors—that all is not lost. It gives us something to look forward to next year when, hopefully, much of the current anxiety and pain is in the rearview mirror.