During the early winter months of 2020, we here in the small city of Brighton on the south coast of the United Kingdom watched with increasing interest and, gradually, concern, the speed at which something called “coronavirus” grew in significance. By late February, we saw an undeniable shift in the communications we received from the advanced engineering and manufacturing communities that we serve globally.

By early March, we faced an incredibly difficult decision. We were scheduled to run our B2B tradeshow Foam Expo alongside the Adhesives & Bonding Expo in Michigan just a few short weeks later. We had 450 exhibitors and many thousands of attendees ready and prepared to descend on the Suburban Collection Showplace exhibition center in Novi, just outside of Detroit, on March 24. With the global situation changing at pace, we needed to carefully consider our response.