The largest North American heat treat show of 2020, Furnaces North America (FNA) is scheduled to be held in Louisville, Kentucky, USA September 30^th to October 2^nd of this year. Due to COVID 19 the question on everybody’s lips these days is; will the show go ahead as planned or will it share the fate of virtually every other heat treat exhibition of 2020? Since early in 2020 every single heat treatment exhibition around the world has been cancelled or postponed with the most recent casualty being HK 2020 which was supposed to held October 20-22 of this year. This annual show, held in Cologne, Germany for the past number of years is the largest annual heat treat related event in Europe and just last week the organizers announced that this would become a “virtual “ show ( http://themonty.com/hk-2020-3/).

While the main reason for all of these events being cancelled is the fear of spreading the virus, economics is a very large factor also-how many exhibitors are willing to invest large sums of money when there are so many unanswered questions about what attendance will be like? Another unknown in the case of FNA is how many attendees will the state of Kentucky allow at the event?  FNA is an excellent show and it would be a real shame to see it cancelled for this year but if I were a bookie I would give you odds of 50/50 at best of the show going ahead.