On Wednesday morning, the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society announced that its Broadcast Symposium (ABS) has been canceled. Originally scheduled for next week, Nov. 8–10, the symposium was to be held at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In an email to registered attendees, IEEE BTS President-Elect and ABS Event Chair Paul Shulins said the symposium was canceled due to “extenuating circumstances that are outside of our direct control.”
“We understand that this change may cause great inconvenience for you and we are sincerely sorry, ” he wrote. “We did not make this decision lightly as we were looking forward to hosting an in-person event.”
In a separate email, Shulins told Radio World, “The board in the end voted to conserve our resources to put together other events starting next year and, based on the early registration numbers, there was concern about making sure our sponsors and speakers got the proper exposure they deserved.”
In lieu of the symposium, Shulins said BTS is choosing to re-package the content, initially intended for next week, to be included in its “Pulse” events for 2023, which start in February.
Shulins said any registrations that were pre-paid have already been refunded, and sponsors now have the option of carrying over their support to be applied to ABS 2023 with a complimentary class upgrade, or take an immediate refund.
The 2023 IEEE Broadcast Symposium is scheduled for next fall, with more updates to follow in the coming days.
“We are very excited and optimistic about 2023 as we forecast a high desire to return to face-to-face conferences,” said Shulins. “IEEE BTS is an important part of the glue that holds the broadcast engineering community together around the globe.”
Questions regarding the canceled event or subsequent refunds can be directed towards Shulins via email at bts@ieee.org.
