IEBA Cancels 2020 Event, Shares 2021 Dates

Facebook / IEBA – IEBA 2019
Live Nation’s Sally Williams leads the Agents Power Panel on the third day of IEBA 2019 in Nashville.

The International Entertainment Buyers Association (IEBA) announced the cancellation of its 2020 event on Thursday.

The conference, which was to mark the 50th annual iteration of the event, was scheduled to take place at the Omni Nashville Oct. 11-13.

IEBA also announced that its 2021 conference will take place at the same venue Oct. 3-5, 2021.

“This was not an easy decision,” said Renee Alexander, IEBA chair and Minnesota State Fair deputy GM of entertainment and marketing, in a statement. “However, due to the massive impact of COVID-19, we feel it is best to press pause this year and return stronger than ever in the fall of 2021.”

“This is a time of huge loss,” IEBA executive director Pam Matthews said in a statement. “The global shutdown of concerts and live events is taking a devastating toll on our industry and is presenting the greatest set of challenges in IEBA’s 50-year history. We acknowledge the need to connect with each other now more than ever, and we are developing plans to ensure that our members will have an opportunity to do so this fall. Expect another announcement from us in the weeks to come.”

In addition to the alternate 2020 programming Matthews suggested, IEBA’s announcement said “IEBA members will receive full instructions regarding the 2020 refund process.”

Since assuming IEBA’s reins in 2013, Matthews has worked to make the organization more inclusive and diverse, as she detailed in a 2019 interview with VenuesNow as part of the magazine’s Women of Influence package.

“IEBA is a beloved heritage brand that needed a little sprucing up,” she said. “We came in and we rocked and rolled it.”

For more about IEBA, revisit Pollstar‘s coverage of the 2019 event.