MILAN – The Specialty Coffee Association has announced today (March 13th) an agreement with their partners to postpone World of Coffee to mid-October. The Association has issued the following statement in this regard.
As announced on March 11, the Specialty Coffee Association has been working with our partner venue in Poland to review options for postponing World of Coffee (WOC) in response to the global COVID-19 outbreak.
Today, we are announcing an agreement with our partners at PTAK Warsaw Expo to postpone World of Coffee to October 15-17, 2020, the only dates available in 2020.
We have informed all of our exhibitors and visitors via email, and our exhibitions team will be sharing more information next week. We’d like to thank the team at PTAK for their help in rescheduling our event and demonstrating their commitment to the health of our community.
World of Coffee Warsaw will continue to host the 2020 World Coffee Roasting, Latte Art, Coffee in Good Spirits, and Cup Tasters Championships as well as the Cezve/Ibrik Championship.
These competitions will be postponed to the new October 15–17 dates, with the World Coffee Events team continuing to work with competitors, judges, and licensed WCE Competition Bodies to address the challenges that COVID-19 presents.
Any competitors, volunteers, or judges who anticipate issues participating during the new dates should get in contact with WCE directly by emailing info@worldcoffeeevents.org.
We send a sincere thank you to all of our partners, sponsors, exhibitors, attendees, and volunteers for their patience as we work to adapt and find solutions to the rapidly changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a reminder, the 2020 Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE), featuring the 2020 World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup, has been postponed by the show organizers to November 3-6, 2020. Read the announcement published on March 11, 2020.
We continue our conversations with our partners at the Oregon Convention Center (OCC) and Travel Portland to review options for postponing Re:co Symposium and the Specialty Coffee Expo. The state of Oregon has canceled public gatherings of over 250 people until April 8. We will continue to share updates on our website as they become available.
We have received many messages of support from members of the specialty coffee community around the world, for which we’re very thankful, and also some new questions, to which we hope to respond as soon as possible.
Thank you,
Yannis Apostolopoulos
Chief Executive Officer
Specialty Coffee Association