The American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) has moved its annual safety conference to a new date and location, while adding a hybrid component to it. The Safety 2021 Professional Development Conference and Exposition will take place Sept. 13-15 both online and in-person in Austin, Texas.
Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the last national safety conference to be held in the United States was EHS Today's Safety Leadership Conference in November 2019. Interestingly, that conference was also held in Texas (Dallas). This year’s Safety Leadership Conference will be a hybrid event held in Cleveland, Ohio, November 9-11.
ASSP plans to incorporate heightened safety and health measures to protect all attendees, said ASSP president Deborah Roy. Attendees will be required to wear face coverings at the convention center, and the society also plans to integrate other safeguards into its plan and will closely monitor pandemic-related developments in Austin. If the public health situation doesn’t improve as expected, ASSP will shift the conference to an all-virtual event.
ASSP had previously announced plans to hold its annual event in Denver, Colo., in June. However, that event was canceled and rescheduled to the Austin event in September due to an analysis of public health factors and national projections. The society’s 2020 show, which originally had been scheduled to be held in-person in Orlando in June 2020, ended up becoming a virtual event.
Similarly, the National Safety Council’s annual event, which was postponed from October 2020 in Indianapolis to a virtual event last month, is planned to be held in-person in October 2021 in Orlando.