WASHINGTON, DC— PCA announced today it will cancel the PCA Convention and Trade Show that was scheduled to take place July 10-14, 2020 at the Sands/Venetian Convention Center and Hotel due to public health and safety concerns related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“After much deliberation and careful discussions of every aspect of our annual convention and trade show, the PCA Board and the Associate Member Advisory Board have made the difficult decision to cancel our current event scheduled for July,” said PCA Executive Director Scott Pearce. “The annual event is an important fixture in the premium tobacco industry, and we were very excited to bring a whole new experience to the industry this year.  However, the public health and safety of our attendees, staff and volunteers outweighed any other considerations in our collective decision-making process.”

PCA was in regular contact with our partners during this time to help us determine the best possible solutions for moving forward. Given the number of still-unknown factors related to the containment of the virus, and with PCA attendees coming from all over the country as well as internationally, PCA concluded that cancelling the July face-to-meeting meeting was the safe and responsible action.

“We understand how important this event is to the business needs of both our manufacturers and our retailers, so we are redoubling our efforts to create innovative new ways to aid our members this year,” Pearce said.

PCA has been working on some new ways for manufacturers and retailers to connect and has made the decision to fast-track these plans to launch some of these this year to help support retailers and manufacturers as the economy begins the slow process of opening and realizing some modest sense of normalcy.  PCA will release the details of these new services in the coming weeks.

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