Saturday sessions shifted to Friday time slots

Saturday sessions shifted to Friday time slots

In the latest update from regarding COVID-19 in New York, CMA leaders announced that sessions planned for Saturday will be moved up to Friday’s time slots. The convention will now end at 5 p.m. Friday.

Gov.  Andrew M. Cuomo banned all events of 500 or more people starting at 5 p.m. Friday, influencing CMA leadership’s decision about the convention. In addition to Cuomo’s event ban announcement, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a state of emergency for New York City.

“We do not have 500 people here, but we decided that we would move our Saturday sessions to Friday and honor the ban,” CMA President, Kenna Griffin said.

As of 4 p.m. Thursday, times for the moved sessions have yet to be decided as CMA leadership waits to hear back from the speakers originally scheduled for Saturday sessions. Due to session cancellations largely caused by university travel bans, space is available for Saturday’s sessions to move up without canceling any Friday sessions to make room.

Saturday’s keynote, Beth Karas, will move up to Friday’s keynote space as well.

“Mario Garcia was set to be our keynote Friday,” Griffin explained. “He has been concerned about his health.”

Garcia had offered to Zoom his session, similar to Sree Sreenivasan’s Thursday keynote session, according to Griffin.

“What we’ve asked him to do is see if he might record it, so that we can share his session and Beth will be here in person at that time,” Griffin said. “We want you to still get to hear from both, but we definitely wanted you to see Beth in person since we had Sree via Zoom today.”

Apple Awards will be announced Friday at 4:30 p.m. A full statement from CMA leadership is available under the “Update on #CMANYC20 and the Coronavirus” tab on the convention webpage.