Kickstart: Expect the next trade show to look very different

Early in 2020, before the Americas and Europe had been impacted by the coronavirus, Chinaplas became one of the first trade shows forced to make a change to keep people safe, announcing in early February that the event that had been set for mid-April in Shanghai would instead take place in August.

Then on April 24, organizers said they would have to cancel the 2020 event altogether as a preventative measure.

And while Chinaplas may have been the first show impacted, it was far from the last. Everything from conferences to open houses to trade fairs to auto shows have been forced to postpone or outright cancel. Or, like Antec or the auto industry's Management Briefing Seminars, switch to a digital version.

Plastics News has events on the schedule yet for 2020, as do many other groups, so we all hope the (trade) show will go on, but I wonder, just what will those events look like?

Crowded aisles and booths? Handshakes? Giveaways? It's hard to picture anything like that happening at this point, unless a vaccine or cure is quickly found.

And how would companies convince their employees to attend without a cure? As my sister told me this weekend after her pastor called everyone telling them services would resume in a few weeks, "I don't care what he says or the governor or the president. I'm not going out in a crowd anytime soon."

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how Lego is making face shields on presses normally producing ABS bricks.

Now Hasbro Inc., along with game maker Cartamundi, has pledged to make 50,000 shields a week from a Cartamundi facility in East Longmeadow, Mass., and donated to hospitals in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where Hasbro is based.

"We are grateful for the opportunity to work together with our partners at Cartamundi to produce much-needed [PPE] to directly assist the critical needs of front-line medical workers in our community," said Hasbro President and Chief Operating Officer John Frascotti. "Throughout this challenging time, Hasbro is committed to using our brands, our resources and our expertise to help make a difference."

The effort comes just a few months after Hasbro pledged to remove all plastic packaging from its products. Obviously, plastic still has a role to play for the company.

For any of you who ever thought, "Hey, I wish I could listen to Brennan Lafferty on Spotify," well you're in luck. (Chances that anyone actually asked themselves about the Plastics News publisher appearing on Spotify are slim, but this is a blog. I get to take a little creative license.)

Brennan's podcast series "What Keeps You Up At Night" is now available on both Spotify and iTunes, so you'll be able to subscribe if you miss the link at plasticsnews.com. The Google Play store link is on its way. And an extra shoutout to Erin Sloan, our web producer, who handles the logistics in making this happen, while dealing with a toddler at home.

The next podcast, going live later this week, features Chris and Debi Robson, owners of The Robson Co. in Alabama.