***VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE IFDAT BOARD – PLEASE READ***
Dear IFDAT Community,
Due to a number of reasons, we have taken the very difficult decision to move the IFDAT 2023 conference (planned for Tampa, USA November 12th-14th) and re-schedule it for 17th-19th April 2024. It will take place in the same venue.
So why this difficult decision? Well, we have considered a few factors.
- There is a very current and real “cost of living” crisis in many countries worldwide. This is also having a real impact on company budgets resulting in stress on resources – both people and financial.
- As many of you will be aware, IFDAT works very closely to many “regional” focussed organisations. IFDAT has carefully considered the financial strains upon our delegates, speakers and sponsors and how this will start to impact on their resources with many wanting to attend, speak at and sponsor/support key conferences. IFDAT is aware that these resources are under stress and people need to make choices.
- One such valuable IFDAT partner organisation is the EWDTS (http://www.ewdts.org/) whose conference is hosted every 2 years. This year they are putting on a fantastic conference in Istanbul 12th-13th October 2023 (http://www.ewdts.org/13-th-ewdts-conference-2023.html). By moving the IFDAT conference to April 2024 we will see a better alignment with the timings of the EWDTS conference, which should help alleviate pressure, leveraging global resources for each conference, without overburdening sponsors, speakers, and delegates. We hope that by moving our conference, people can now support BOTH conferences and not have to miss out on the different focus, content and opportunities that each bring.
- Among IFDAT’s important alliances, IFDAT partners with the Substance Abuse Program Administrators Association (SAPAA Worldwide) (https://sapaa.com/), who will hold their annual conference October 15-18, 2023 in Orlando, Florida (https://www.sapaa.com/page/2023conference). SAPAA is a non-profit trade association whose members represent alcohol and drug testing service agents, including third party administrators (TPAs), in-house administrators, Medical Review Officers (MROs), DHHS Certified Laboratories, Substance Abuse Professionals (SAPs), manufacturers of testing devices, and collection sites/collectors. By moving the IFDAT conference to April 2024, any potential conflict with the SAPAA conference is also eliminated, giving delegates, speakers and sponsors an opportunity to participate in multiple events throughout the year without having to choose one over the other.
- Unfortunately, we also recognize that moving the IFDAT conference to April of 2024, we will be within one month of another such valuable IFDAT partner organisation, the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association (NDASA) (https://ndasa.com/). As you may know, NDASA became the largest US drug and alcohol testing association after the association formerly known as DATIA merged into NDASA on June 1, 2023. The always outstanding NDASA annual conference and trade show will take place from May 15-17, 2024 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a family-oriented vacation venue. (https://ndasa.com/event/2024-ndasa-conference-and-trade-show/). By moving the IFDAT conference to April 2024, we hope people will be able to support IFDAT, as the international conference to attend in 2024 and NDASA, as the US conference to attend in May of 2024, recognizing that each conference offers unique and valuable experiences.
- The past couple of years have seen some extreme weather and “natural disaster” events. Tampa (Florida) is a fantastic venue for our Conference and we are very excited to welcome you there. We have an amazing program planned – both social and conference wise. However, Florida is also very susceptible to adverse weather events – namely hurricane season. Late September 2022 saw Tampa hit hard by one such hurricane and was then also heavily affected by resulting floods. We are extremely proud that IFDAT is attended by people from all over the world. By moving the conference to April, we are reducing these risks exponentially making the conference “safer” for all who attend and reducing the likelihood of severe travel disruptions.
We have not taken this decision lightly, and fully understand that some have already started to make plans and booked hotels etc. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.
Our focus is, and always will be, on delivering a high quality World leading conference. IFDAT is the leading organisation bringing together a global community of stakeholders within the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industries. By providing a platform and annual conference, IFDAT delivers high quality information, education and knowledge from (and to) a community of industry leading professionals. By sharing best practice, guidelines, latest technologies, trends, innovation and also working closely with “regional” organisations from many different countries/continents – IFDAT helps shape the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry worldwide and provides the best networking opportunities to help the IFDAT community to grow their business with like-minded partners.
We hope that you appreciate that we have the best interests of all of the IFDAT community at our core, and that you will understand that we have made this decision for the right reasons. We hope that you will continue to support us and make IFDAT Tampa 2024 a great success.
As you can imagine, following this decision we have a lot to amend. But we wanted to communicate with our valuable community first and as soon as possible. So please be patient and bear with us at this time. IFDAT does not have the luxury of employed staff and relies on volunteer input.
We will be making changes to our website in the next week or so, including new links for hotel bookings (at discounted rates) and a fully automated conference booking and payment system for both delegates and sponsors.
On behalf of all of us at IFDAT, we would like to thank everyone in advance for you continued support. We genuinely believe that our community is the best in the world. Together, we make a real difference to improve our global industry through innovation, best practice, discussion and action.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if required via email info@ifdat.com.
Regards,
The IFDAT Board
