The ARLA conference due to take place in 12 days time was called off last night, one hour after coronavirus was upgraded to pandemic status.

Scheduled at ExCel on March 24, it has now been postponed until September 2.

The event has over 1,000 attendees. Existing bookings will automatically transfer to the new date. The event also has a large-scale exhibition which is always sold out. Hotel bookings will also be affected in the Docklands area.

A spokesperson said: “As you can imagine with an event of this scale it has not been straightforward.

“However, with the announcement in the last hour of the World Health Authority’s classification of the virus as a pandemic, we are confident that this is the right decision.”

The postponement follows that of the MPIM event, due to be taking place in France this week, and now scheduled for June.

However, some other property events are still continuing to happen, organisers were stressing yesterday.

EYE will try to keep readers updated and organisers are welcome to use this platform to say whether their events, however large or small, are going ahead, being postponed or cancelled.

One event which squeezed under the wire was A Place in the Sun which went ahead at Manchester last weekend. Attendance was said to be 4,651 visitors, much in line with last year’s 4,835.

Future events still said to be going ahead as of yesterday include the Property Investor Show, like the ARLA event also due to be held at ExCel, London, on April 3 and 4.

A free training event for agents is currently due to be going ahead in Leeds on the afternoon of March 26. Organised jointly by training provider the Able Agent and specialist recruitment firm the Ambitious Group, it is open to decision makers and will look at training in the light of RoPA and attracting new talent to the industry.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/staffing-training-ropa-tickets-95273853661?aff=ebdssbdestsearch