URGENT: PKH 2020 IS CANCELLED
[size=85](Norsk tekst følger i posten under)[/size]
Hello, everybody.
We’ve been clinging to the hope, but as you may or may not have heard: Today, Norwegian authorities banned all public indoor gatherings of 500 people or more, until the end of April. That means that the PKH committee, after discussing the matter with Brikkelauget’s board this afternoon, has had no other choice but to cancel PKH 2020. This is of course sad, but there’s nothing we can do about it, and we certainly support the decision made by the authorities - this is, after all, about much more than the joy of getting together to show off our hobby, it’s a matter of life and death and trying to contain a virus that is actually quite dangerous. Covid-19 looks like it will have a big impact on most of 2020, and we must face the reality: The ninth edition of PKH will be postponed to 2021, and the tenth anniversary that we’re looking forward to, won’t happen until 2022.
For you, this probably means that you have plane tickets that are non-refundable, and maybe accommodation costs that you won’t recover. More about that later.
For us, it means that we risk a substantial financial loss on renting the hall, and that we have bought stuff that is of no use. But most of our supplies can be used next year, and we can take the financial backlash we’re facing. We have, over the cause of the past few years, built a buffer in case something just like this might happen, even though we didn’t think it would be needed. It is also a good thing that we have been left with no choice. The authorities have decided that PKH can not go ahead, and they’ve made this decision for us more than a month in advance - it would have been much worse for us if, for example, the weather suddenly turned rogue the night before the event. At least now we have time to try to cut some costs, and some costs have already been avoided because we saw which way this was going.
Anyway: We’ve worked hard for this event, and it’s a bummer that it won’t happen. But we’ll be back with a vengeance next year!
And then, about those plane tickets: If you cancel your flight to Trondheim, you might end up only getting your taxes and fees reimbursed - at least that’s probably what we Norwegians are facing. That’s not a very big sum of money, but whether you cancel tonight or in three weeks doesn’t change that amount. So if you want to travel, and come from a country that isn’t high-risk, so that you will actually be allowed to enter Norway, please stay calm and don’t contact your airline just yet. PKH 2020 may have become a thing of the past before it ever became a thing of the present, but maybe something else might happen in Trondheim that could make those plane tickets useful
Just what that might be is too soon to say, and at the moment the covid-19 development is moving so fast that what we will wake up to tomorrow might be something completely different than what we know today. There will probably be further restrictions on travel and events in the near future, and we will of course always adhere to any local and national advice and rules that may apply when it comes to this. But let’s at least wait until after the weekend, and then we’ll see if it’s possible to make something else, and far more informal, happen in Trondheim that weekend.
Best regards
[i]The PKH committee
Harald and Are
For the board of Brikkelauget
Morten, Arild, and Merete[/i]