The Print and Visual Communication Association’s (PVCA) Print2Parliament event scheduled for October has been moved to an online event following COVID-19 restrictions.
PVCA national events manager Jacobena Mills confirmed with Sprinter that the event that brings together the printing industry and parliament will proceed on the same day as planned, but will now be broadcast live, on the association’s Facebook page.
“We’re doing the virtual version of Print2Parliament due to COVID-19 restrictions and it will be a live-streamed event on PVCA’s Facebook page on the 21 October at 7pm,” Mills mentioned.
This year is the third time that PVCA is hosting Print2Parliament and Mills said moving to a virtual platform is necessary to enable the event to proceed, and for the industry to have the conversations around print and COVID-19.
“It’s something that we definitely didn’t want to sacrifice and after the success of the virtual National Print Awards, we wanted to deliver this event in that same format as well. It’s important that it goes ahead and given the state of the world, virtual is the best way to proceed,” she said.
PVCA is currently in discussion with a number of members of parliament to attend virtually, specifically ones that have attended both events in the past. They include senator Pauline Hanson, shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers, and minister for communications and the arts Paul Fletcher.
“We have also reached out to the prime minister and deputy prime minister’s office for comment as we will be discussing the industry’s top priorities for print, its response to COVID-19, and the Proudly Printed in Australia campaign that has been quite prevalent this year,” Mills said.
“We need to focus on boosting the economy, jobs in Australia, and the need to keep print in Australia considering that the print industry is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the country. It’s very important that we owe it to the industry, in these times, to have these conversations going.”
The format of the event will see PVCA CEO Andrew Macaulay engaging with the members of parliament on Zoom calls, with some select industry members to join in the conversations as well.
The virtual event will also have a segment on ‘what it takes to make gold’ where PVCA will showcase the gold winning entries of the National Print Awards to parliament attendees and have a discussion with some of these winners on how the government can further support the printing industry.
Print2Parliament has been sponsored by industry super fund, Media Super, and this year is no different.
Industry members with questions for Print2Parliament are encouraged to email them in advance to events@pvca.org.au.
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