8 November 2021
Neuroscience 2021 Exhibitor Full Refund

Dear Society for Neuroscience 2021 Meeting Management Team,

We, the undersigned exhibitors, are writing this open letter to express our dissatisfaction with the Society's decision to convert our on-site booth agreement to a virtual booth, without the option to opt-out and receive a full refund.

The terms of the exhibitor agreement specify that the agreement is a "Lease of Space" agreement and the cancelation clause (copied below) offers the option for a refund without any mention of an option for conversion to virtual conference.

The virtual booth option was initially offered as a complementary addition to on-site exhibitors. Accordingly, it is not acceptable to us that our agreement is converted to a lease of a virtual booth, and that we are charged for that. Furthermore, the virtual booth cost unfairly impacts smaller businesses more than larger businesses, as the fixed booth cost is a larger fraction of a smaller booth's fees.

We respectfully ask you and the society to reconsider your position and refund all exhibitors the full amount of their registration, as per the agreement. (regardless of whether the exhibitors participated in the virtual booth or not)

Thank you for your reconsideration!

Neuroscience 2021 Exhibitors

From the Exhibitor Prospectus 2021:

"Cancellation of Meeting and Exhibition

It is mutually agreed that in the event Neuroscience 2021 is canceled due to the unavailability of the convention center for any reason, or due to acts of God, war, strikes, government regulation or advisory warnings (including travel advisory warnings by the government or World Health Organization), civil disturbance, terrorism, or threats of terrorism substantiated by governmental warnings or advisory notices, curtailment of transportation, epidemics, disaster, fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, unseasonable extreme inclement weather, shortages or disruption of the electrical power supply causing blackouts or rolling blackouts in Chicago, IL or any other comparable conditions or circumstances occurring either in the location of SfN’s meeting or in the countries/states of origin of at least 30% of the attendees or along their routes of travel, making it, at the sole discretion of SfN, commercially impracticable, illegal, or impossible to operate the event. If the event is cancelled pursuant to this paragraph, then the application and contract for exhibit space will be terminated. In the event of such termination neither party shall be liable to the other for delay or failure to perform its obligations, except there shall be a prorated reduction of any fees payable or otherwise due under this agreement and/or refund of any deposits paid."

42
signatures
38 verified
  1. Walid Soussou, President, Wearable Sensing, SAN DIEGO
  2. Kamran Nazim, Biomedical Engineer, Soterix Medical, Woodbridge
  3. Shirley Kingsley-Berg, Biomedical Engineering & Physiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
  4. Chase Lampl, VP Sales & Operations, Somni Scientific, South Park
  5. Dawn Gelsinger, Vice President Sales/Operations, www.kopfinstruments.com, Tujunga
  6. Jon D. Moulton, Ph.D., Biology & Special Projects, Gene Tools LLC, Philomath, OR USA
  7. Brandy Nagamine, Biotechnical Specialist, Gene Tools, LLC, Corvallis
  8. York Winter, CEO, PhenoSys GmbH, Berlin, Germany
  9. Jane Lucas, Event & Marketing Manager, Sophion Bioscience AS, Ballerup
  10. Max Hofbauer, CEO, loopbio Gmbh, Vienna, AUSTRIA
  11. John Stowers, PhD, CTO, loopbio gmbh, Vienna
  12. Federico Thei, PhD, CEO, elements srl, Cesena
  13. Filippo Cona, PhD, Project Manager, Elements srl, Cesena
  14. Alessandro Porro, Application Scientist, Elements srl, Milano
  15. Marieve Picard, Director Sales and Marketing, Bliq Photonics, Montreal
  16. Alan Kriegstein, Owner, ALA Scientific Instruments, Farmingdale
  17. Michael Holmes, Sales Agent, Prospective Instruments, Saint Petersburg
  18. Andrew C Klein, VP, Sales and Marketing, Plexon Inc, Dallas
  19. Kevan Hashemi, Electrical Engineer, Open Source Instruments Inc., Waltham
  20. Donna A Johnson, CEO, Pinnacle Technology Inc., Lawrence KS
  21. Jeffrey Farmer, CEO, Diagnosys LLC, Lowell
  22. Kelsey Moore, BD Executive, HistoWiz, Brooklyn
  23. Neha Doshi, Marketing Manager, Zaber Technologies, Vancouver
  24. Walt Besio, President & CEO, CREmedical Corp., East Greenwich
  25. Donald J. Trump, Rightful President, Murica, Washington D.C.
  26. David Pushett, Business Development, Porsolt, France
  27. Bernd Polder, CEO, npi electronic, Tamm, Germany
  28. Stefan Schaffelhofer, CEO, cortEXplore GmbH, Linz
  29. Tatu Saukkoriipi, Sales director, Sensapex Oy, Oulu
  30. Clifford Bredenberg, President, World Precision Instruments, Sarasota
  31. Perry Spires, Sales Manager, Hilltop Lab Animals, Inc, Scottdale
  32. Gretchen Brauch, VP of Sales and Marketing, Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh
  33. Catherine Theodoropoulos, VP Product and Applications, EMIT Imaging, Baltimore
  34. Aneesh Acharya, Head of Commercial, Molecular Instruments, Los Angeles
  35. Bruno BUISSON, President & CSO, NEUROSERVICES-ALLIANCE, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade
  36. Diane ROYER, Marketing Manager, Neuroservices-Alliance, Aix en Provence
  37. Rachel Weisman, Marketing Communications Manager, Active Motif Inc, Carlsbad
  38. anonymous
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