AES POSTPONE CONVENTION UNTIL LATER DATE

IN THE wake of the terrorist attacks on Tuesday, the Audio Engineering Society (AES) have postponed their AES 111th Convention until November 30.
The annual audio event, which was to have been held next week in Manhattan at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, will now be held Friday, November 30 to Monday, December 3, 2001. The convention will use the same exhibit, demo and conference space.
AES Executive Director Roger Furness said: "The support of the industry has been unquestionable. Yesterday, as you can imagine, the phone was ringing off the hook, and we've had 500 emails, all offering support and thanking us for making a fast, but careful, decision. It seems we were able to make the best decision possible in a bad situation. The reaction we had from manufacturers was overwhelming support. We took the measure to actually contact each of the exhibitors by phone. The exhibitors are the ones who are affected the most at this very moment, because they're loading trucks to send equipment; we needed to get through to them fast."
While postponing the convention to a later date has provided the industry with time to move on and implement new plans before the convention, it was a necessity. New York City Mayor's Office of Emergency Management and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have taken over large portions of the Javits Center for use in coordinating emergency services. FEMA will have complete control of that space and any other that it needs, for an undetermined period.
Furness noted that while the venue and internal space will be the same, there will be unavoidable changes to some programs, workshops and papers to be presented at the convention. (CD)