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WAN Conference in Hyderabad postponed to 30 November – 3 December 09

January 27, 2009 | By Purva Sethi

A WAN press release states that the World Association of Newspapers has decided to postpone its World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo, scheduled to be held in Hyderabad, India from 22 to 25 March, to end-November 2009. “These events have been hugely successful in recent years, with growing participation and great programs. We want our first Congress and Forum in India, the world’s biggest democracy and a flourishing press market, to continue this trend. But the economic conditions simply don’t allow that at this precise moment,” said Timothy Balding, CEO of the Paris-based WAN.

The conference events, hosted by the Indian Newspaper Society, are now to be held from 30 November to 3 December 2009, subject to confirmation. Last year’s event drew more than 1,800 participants from 113 countries to Göteborg, Sweden, a record for the 61-year old conference. “The economic crisis has hit travel and conference budgets and has had a profound impact on participation in the events. Our belief is that newspaper companies will, by necessity, learn to live with the crisis over the year and be more willing to invest again in conferences and travel by the end of the year.”

The first report of the delay published by the Guardian in the UK indicated that there were only 220 registrations for the event, which had planned to attract at least 1500 delegates. The registration amount for international delegates is about Euro 1900 per delegate. For the Indian delegates this amount is payable in local currency and additional delegates from the same publisher were to enjoy discounted bulk registrations. Moreover there was a provision to allow registration for particular days rather than the whole conference. According to Hormusjee Cama of Bombay Samachar who is the current president of the INS, about 400 Indian delegates were expected to register for the WAN conference in Hyderabad, and there was no problem as far as the Indian newspapers support for the event.