The largest shipping conference in the US will not take place during its usual June dates in Manhattan owing to the continued impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
Marine Money Week has scrapped its planned dates 25-27 June but is looking to a range of times from September forward to hold the sprawling conference, Marine Money International chairman Jim Lawrence told TradeWinds Friday.
Organisers had been hoping into last week that the event might go on as scheduled, Lawrence said, but saw the writing on the wall when even stricter "shelter-in-place" orders were issued for New York City and the rest of state.
Marine Money joins a long list of major shipping events to push dates later into 2020 as a result of the virus, which has infected more than 566,000 and killed more than 25,000 globally.
The year's biggest global conference, Posidonia in Greece, has been postponed from early June to a 26 October start.
The Seatrade cruise conference originally scheduled for April in Miami has postponed to dates not yet scheduled.
Singapore Iron Ore week was cancelled.
And another major US event, the Connecticut Maritime Association shipping forum, was postponed from late-March to a 29 June start. Those revised dates may now seem optimistic given that this is just a week after the original Marine Money Week schedule.
Still other conference organisers such as Capital Link have opted to take their events online, with that sponsor hosting a New York forum in that fashion beginning Monday.
