More hints of the cascading effects we’ll be seeing from the coronavirus pandemic.

Meda’s major professional organization, the American Society of Criminology, has just sent a notice to members that its annual conference in mid-November 2020 is being cancelled.

I don’t know what the board discussion of the move included, but I imagine that there’s just too much uncertainty about what conditions will be like in six months, whether large gatherings will be allowed, and if they are allowed, whether enough participants will be able and willing to travel to a meeting of this kind. ASC is a large organization, with anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 particpants at the annual conference depending on the venue, and like most large organizations, has to make a decision like this well in advance.

ASC, for example schedules its annual conferences years in advance in order to get favorable deals with hotels. But cancellations likely involve difficult negotiations in order to avoid devastating fees and penalties.

Some other organizations cancelled spring events and rescheduled them for late in the year. But ASC’s move suggests that such delays may not be sufficient.

And if meetings of large academic organizations do proceed, will members be able secure funding from their institutions to cover some or all of travel costs? And how will that impact meeting attendance and organizational budgets?

So what happens when a major event like this is cancelled?

Investigative Reporters and Editors, one of journalism’s major professional associations but not anywhere near as large as ASC, delayed its annual conference from June to late August, and also has postponed all scheduled in-person workshops, data bootcamps and newsroom training, laid off one person working under a constract, reduced the hours of a second position, and deferred a planned new hire. .

But the IRE website indicates the group expects to incur a $260,000 budget deficit in the fiscal year ending June 30. “Before the pandemic, IRE was on course to finish the fiscal year with a surplus,” according to the website.

Assuming this is being repeated in many different professional associations in very different fields, I would expect many of those organizations to face serious financial problems. And what that means in each field is probably different and, so far, unknown.