Neos Con 2020 postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19

The Neos Conference 2020 has been postponed to 7th - 8th May 2021 due to the ongoing situation regarding COVID-19.

– Written by


Hi all,

today is a sad day.

The Neos Conference 2020 has been postponed to 7th - 8th May 2021 due to the ongoing situation regarding COVID-19.

The federal government has not only imposed a ban on all events but a general lockdown with life-related exceptions. This requires us to think about possible solutions for this years Neos Con.

The Neos Con is still a little while away, but we discussed it thoroughly and we came to this decision for several reasons.

Right now no one really knows what's going to happen, what we do know though is that companies are probably going to struggle and might not send their colleagues to a conference for a while. Also, we don't know for how long schools are going to be shut down, so people might not be able to travel. We want the community to get together and also (very unromantic) we need ticket sales to afford the conference. So we think it's the right decision not to have the conference in June 2020.

Why not postpone to fall 2020?

Well, we considered moving the conference to the end of the year. But there are some things that changed our minds.

First, the current situation is highly unpredictable. That given, we don't know how long it will take to get back to normal. It could also happen, that we need to postpone it a second time.

Second, as of all the events are cancelled and rescheduled, many of them are postponed to the end of the year. People have to decide, which events they want to attend. Or worse, they can't afford to go to any conferences.

Third, given all the rescheduled events, we need to find a suitable location and that is highly unrealistic.

Therefore, we decided to postpone Neos Con to May 2021.

Budget Transparency

Cancelling such a big event has big impacts on organization and costs.

The fixed costs for Neos Con 2019 have been roughly 85.000 EUR. This includes location, technology, food, drinks, speaker hotels, social event etc. This does not include the worked hours of Lisa, Sebastian, Fabian pre and during the event, including all helping hands! Summing up only the organizational hours, this would be more than 1.200h.

Ticket sales and sponsorships are both fundamental as they cover each 50% of the fix costs so that we get out of the event at least even in cash flow. That’s why attendees and sponsors are so important for an open-source event like this.

The location was very fair and cooperative that we basically pay a cancellation fee for this year and take that payment into account for next years conference. So that way we don’t have to waste any budget on extra fees.

The organizing team already put a lot of work into the 2020 conference during the past months. Which is surely a shame because of the time and effort put into it, but mainly because we were so excited for a great conference in 2020.

We already talked to all sponsors and they totally understand the situation and decision. Also, they all ensured their support for next years Neos Con! Thank you so much – we couldn’t do it without you! ❤️

What are your options?

We want to make the whole process of refunds as easy as possible. In case you already bought a conference ticket, you have the following two simple options:

  1. You keep your Neos Con 2020 ticket and use it next year. Of course, this is our preferred option :)
  2. You get a full refund. In this case, please write us an email (conference@neos.io) with your name and order ID.

Please remember, this is only possible because the conference team is not being paid for the organizational work.

We know that conference tickets costs are sometimes way smaller than travel costs. Therefore, please be sure to get in contact with your travel-related providers. In the current situation, most of them are really fair regarding refunds.

What's next?

Neos Conference is THE annual gathering of the Neos community and we want to keep the spirit alive. This means, that we need to think about new ways to gather this year. As you know, all the conference talks are streamed live during the event and are uploaded shortly after. So, bringing the conference online is not completely new to us.

Nevertheless, running the entire conference with over 30 talks and 2 tracks online seems a bit too much for us. Therefore, we have the following in mind:

  • There will be at least one day and track filled with talks on June 19th 2020
  • This is going to be completely free of charge
  • We will record all the talks and upload them to YouTube afterwards.
  • There will also be online rooms for socialising and talking about other topics.
  • The schedule and talks will be announced shortly.

We hope that this will fill the gap in a somehow appropriate way.

Stay healthy! We can't wait to meet you all in person next year!

Your Neos Conference Team 
Lisa, Sebastian & Fabian

Neos-Con-2019-Drone-Photo.jpg