On July 1, Virginia officially entered into Phase 3 and began to further reopen the state. Governor Northam’s face covering requirement for indoor public spaces remains in place, and guidelines for indoor events changed to allow up to 250 people to attend RVAsec.
Even though Virginia has been in Phase 3 for some time, we have still been proceeding cautiously. While Virginia has done well so far handling COVID-19 compared to many states, in the last few weeks it has become clear that it’s in everyone’s best interest to revise our plans for October. We are still working through the details, but we will not conduct RVAsec 9 in person as we desired, but rather we are working on plans to hold it as a virtual summit with streaming talks before the end of the year.
The RVAsec 9 Virtual Summit will be completely free for attendees, which will allow us to reach a broader audience and bring new members to the community.
We are in the process of setting up a chat server (using Discord) for our community so we can have active discussions during the streaming presentations, and we’ll also be leveraging this going forward to keep the RVAsec community in touch and socializing. Lastly, we are also looking at ways we can resume our monthly meetings in some virtual fashion.
Previously purchased tickets for 2020 will be automatically transferred to the 2021 conference, which will be held in person on June 3-4, 2021, regardless of any price increases.
While going virtual is a huge disappointment for all of us, the safety of the community that’s grown over the last nine years is paramount. We thank you for your flexibility this year as we work through brand new challenges, and look forward to being in-person again in 2021 at our brand new venue.
We will be following up with more details about the Summit, and a huge announcement about plans for 2021.
See you in the virtual!
-Chris and Jake