Dear WOMEX friends, delegates, partners,
Due to this week's developments arising from the Coronavirus Pandemic and the resulting restrictions placed by the Hungarian Government on closing their borders to non-residents from Tuesday, 1 September 2020 – WOMEX, together with our local partners for this year Hangveto today announce that the WOMEX 20 will be going digital. The usual on-site event will no longer be taking place; some elements will be happening live and streamed online from Budapest in cooperation with our local partners, the extent of which will be determined by the actual regulations at the time of the event. We will be releasing details of our online programme by mid-September.
All current registrations for WOMEX 20 will be cancelled, and all registration fees and stand booking fees will be fully refunded. The WOMEX Registration team will process all cancellations and get in touch with registered Delegates within the next days. We kindly ask you to be patient, as this will take some time, and we thank you for your understanding.
In the light of the Hungarian Government's recent emergency declaration, demanding two locally produced negative tests or two weeks of quarantine upon entry, we realise that conducting an international physical event, in the way that we have been doing in previous editions, would be unfeasible for most of the community involved. We have tried everything to create a safe, accessible and enjoyable edition for the community but with the discouraging trends of the pandemic and the emergency measures and travel restrictions that follow we came to the point where this is the only responsible decision.
Over the past months, we have been continuously reviewing all scenarios to find a way to give us an on-site event with physical distancing, spacious venues, and every possibility to maintain the hygiene and the safety of delegates, artists and team. This is now beyond our control, and, with Hangvető, we will move to a new format within our original event dates – a format that we are committed to creating to be as human, as inspiring and as useful as possible.
We remain humbled by the support we have received over the past months from you, our dear community, who encouraged us not to give up, and to keep working towards serving, helping, and bringing as many of our global music community together as possible. Please bear with us as we go to our digital drawing boards, ready to promote, support and connect artists and delegates in the virtual space. We will be exploring all possibilities of streamed conference sessions, webinars, showcases, films, Awards and more aspects of the new WOMEX 20 Programme.
We understand the disappointment of skipping this year's personal reunion in Budapest. We have already agreed with our local partner Hangvető to discuss our mutual aim to revisit Budapest with a physical WOMEX edition as soon as circumstances allow.
As always, we remain committed to all our partners, friends, teams, and our community's good health and safety.
We will continue to let you know all of our plans, and we will share more details regarding the new format of digital WOMEX 20 and its registration process. Thank you again for all of your support.
Yours musically,
WOMEX team
article posted by:Gideon Elfgen, Piranha Arts