Rail strikes threat causes June event to be moved to 18 October
Next week’s planned rail strikes have seen the Products Of Change and Max Publishing teams make the call to postpone this month’s Sustainability In Licensing Conference until 18 October, 2022.
The conference was planned to make its in-person debut at the Royal Geographical Society in London on 22 June but, as the news of the strike across Network Rail and London Underground services broke last week, transport issue concerns began to flood from both ticket holders and conference speakers.
In what the unions have threatened as “the biggest outbreak of industrial action in the UK since 1989” up to 50,000 railway workers are expected to take part on Tuesday 21 June, and 40,000 on Thursday 23 June – and the timings mean services will actually be affected over the whole week.
The organisers have, therefore, decided the fairest option for all ticket holders, speakers and sponsors is to postpone the Sustainability In Licensing Conference, which will now be held on Tuesday, 18 October, at the Royal Geographical Society as well as being streamed live digitally – all booked tickets, both physical and digital, will be automatically moved to the new date.
Helena Mansell-Stopher, ceo and founder of Products Of Change, said: “Having navigated two years of a pandemic we had waited so long and were so excited to be bringing the conference to you all in-person for the first time this year. However, due to forces outside our control, we know this is the right decision to postpone the event. It wouldn’t be fair to our wonderful delegates, amazing speakers, or incredible sponsors to go ahead with an event that lands right in the middle of these railway strikes. The issues it would cause everyone travelling to our central London venue would be untold.
“We have always set out to deliver the very best for the industry and that includes the very best Sustainability In Licensing Conference – that means a conference we can all get to, in-person, to share our progression and ideas around the most important conversation within the industry right now.
“That’s why we have moved the conference to its new date where we will deliver a line-up of inspirational speakers, discussions, and panel sessions just as strong as we’d planned for you next week.”
For any ticket enquiries contact Clare Hollick at Createvents on clare@createvents.co.uk or 01183 340085.
Please note the Brand & Licensing Innovation Summit, organised by Informa Markets, will also not take place next week and the planned conference sessions will now be held as part of Brand Licensing Europe in September. Further details can be found at www.brandlicensinginnovationsummit.com.
