July 22, 2021
The Honorable Ben Cardin
Chairman, Senate Committee on Small Business
United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Nydia Velazquez
Chairwoman, House Committee on Small Business
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Bernie Sanders
Chairman, Senate Budget Committee
United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable John Yarmuth
Chairman, House Budget Committee
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515
Re: Please include desperately needed assistance for small businesses that support
trade shows in the Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Resolution (By expanding the Shuttered
Venues Grant Program)
Dear Members of Congress:
We are writing to urge you to approve a budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2022 that includes additional
assistance for one sector of the economy that continues to lag behind all others – live business events
such as trade shows and conventions.
We represent small businesses across the country, and hundreds of thousands of employees, that
provide logistical support for live business events. Due to restrictions on large gatherings adopted at
the local, state and national levels, our industry has been essentially shut down for 15 months. The
economic impacts for our sector have been well-documented:
- Revenues for service providers and suppliers are down by an average of 90 percent;
- Hundreds of thousands of employees have been furloughed, laid off, or had salaries reduced;
- Many small businesses across the country have already closed, and more will do so in the
coming months.
Exhibitions Industry Letter to Congress
Page 2
As the Delta variant continues to spread, many international travel restrictions remain in place, and
business travel remains very limited. As a result, events continue to postpone and/or cancel, and a full
recovery for live business events continues to be delayed. Small businesses that support these events
cannot absorb additional debt, and many of our companies are hanging on by a thread.
As you prepare the budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2022, and the $3.5 trillion human infrastructure
package, we urge you to include funding to support this hard-hit sector of the economy. Specifically,
we ask that you expand the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program to include live business
events and the small businesses that support them.
We are grateful for the support we have received from the Paycheck Protection and EIDL Programs.
This assistance has helped millions of small businesses survive in a harsh environment. However, as
other sectors of the economy move toward a successful recovery, live business events will remain at a
standstill for some time to come, and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of our employees will
be impacted. The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program is providing invaluable assistance to live
entertainment events. We urge you to extend this program to include suppliers and service providers
for live business events, who are equally hard hit.
We thank you for the generous assistance Congress has provided to the small business community
during this pandemic, and we hope that you will agree to provide additional assistance for this still-
struggling sector.
Thank you very much for your support.
Sincerely,
The Experiential Designers & Producers Association (EDPA), Exhibitor Appointed Contractor Assoc. (EACA), National Tradeshow Alliance (NTA), Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance (ECA), the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT-DC36) and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters (UBC) are continuing in their lobbying efforts to make lawmakers and members of Congress aware of the needs of the meetings and live events/tradeshows industries.
On July 22, they wrote a letter to the Senate and House committees on small business as well as the budget committees to request they expand the Shuttered Venues Grant Program to include to include live business events and the small businesses that support them in order to provide “desperately needed assistance for the small businesses that support tradeshows” in the Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Resolution.
As Rob Cohen, VP at Display Supply & Lighting, Inc, says, “The EDPA continues to lead the charge to work with elected officials in Washington to try and secure additional relief for the members of our industry—the hardest hit industry through the pandemic!”
Below is the letter sent to Congress: