Facebook has cancelled all of its major face-to-face conferences, events and gatherings through June 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed. Facebook's decision mirrors a similar move at Microsoft, which has also canceled all major conferences through mid-2021 -- including the company's popular Microsoft Ignite and Inspire events.
In Facebook's case, Zuckerberg said the company is "canceling any large physical events we had planned with 50 or more people through June 2021. Some of these we will hold as virtual events instead and we'll share more details on that soon. Similarly, we're extending our policy of no business travel through at least June of this year as well."
Channel Partner Summits: The Challenge Ahead
The Facebook and Microsoft event strategies raise key questions for channel-centric technology companies -- many of which depend on annual events and regional gatherings to drive partner engagements and sales leads.
Dozens of channel events have been canceled through at least August 2020, but some events have been rescheduled for later in 2020. Other planned F2F gatherings have shifted to virtual event formats hosted on the Web. Still digital conference organizers need to carefully avoid these missteps.
