What Happens When So Many Big Events Get Canceled? 'There's No Precedent For This'

Ben Bergman

Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.

What Happens When So Many Big Events Get Canceled? 'There's No Precedent For This'

With virtually every event nationwide now canceled for at least the next two months, Cameron Argetsinger, who specializes in insurance law, says his phone has been ringing nonstop.

"There's no precedent for this," he told dot.LA.


The Centers for Disease Control recommended Sunday that events with more than 50 attendees be canceled or postponed for the next two months. Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom banned gatherings of 250 through at least March. Mayor Eric Garcetti ordered restaurants, bars, nightclubs and gyms closed last night.

Most conference organizers did not wait for official orders, with Southern California events such as Coachella, E3, and The Milken Global Conference already delayed or canceled.

Argetsinger, Special Counsel at the Washington D.C. based firm, Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, has been getting calls from conference organizers desperate to recoup losses from events they have to cancel or postpone because of coronavirus. He says most big conferences buy cancellation insurance, but the majority of policies have exclusions for communicable disease. Policyholders can choose to pay slightly higher premiums to be covered against disease, though many do not carry the extra coverage, including South By Southwest, which will now reportedly be on the hook for tens of millions dollars.

"The devil is in the details," said Argetsinger.

For those trying to file claims, Argetsinger recommends policyholders be as thorough as possible and document losses meticulously.

"Event organizers who have bought cancellation policies should know that they may be facing an uphill battle in trying to obtain coverage from insurers who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cancellation claims and who are trying to limit their own losses," Argetsinger said. "It is critical for policyholders to understand the terms of their policies and to comply with all of the requirements that the policy places on them."

He says it helps that governments are increasingly banning gatherings, which makes it hard to argue that events could proceed.

"That would strengthen the claim," he said.

Postponing the Milken Global Conference

On March 7th, executives at the Milken Institute postponed the 23rd annual Global Conference to July. The event, which attracts 4,000 attendees from more than 70 countries to Beverly Hills normally takes over the entire Beverly Hilton – from the same massive ballroom where the Golden Globes are held to dozens of smaller rooms. It is likely not possible to replicate the same thing this summer, though the institute is currently in negotiations with the hotel about how much of the conference can take place there and would only say that it would be happening "somewhere in Los Angeles."

"There is no guarantee of how things are going to look in July, but all of the best advice we were getting in terms of monitoring the track of the virus was that what we've seen in Asia was there was a peak over a period of about two months," said Katherine O'Reilly, Milken's Executive Director of Business and Development.

Milken has a full-time staff of about 25 working on the conference year round and another 100 who pitch in once the date gets closer, all of whom will now have to turn their attention to trying to reschedule panels and add new ones to reflect how the world has changed.

"It's a very heavy lift logistically," said O'Reilly.

O'Reilly didn't know the financial toll of postponing the conference and what might be covered by insurance, but if the conference is ultimately canceled or scaled back, it would be a major blow for Milken since the conference – with ticket prices in the thousands of dollars and lucrative sponsorships – covers much of the Institute's operating budget.

"Our expectation is that the sponsors are sticking with us," said O'Reilly. "For a lot of people this conference is important to their business, so they want to see it continue."

The wider economic impact of the conference not taking place totals at least $19 million, PredictHQ, a provider of event data, told dot.LA. It says all told, billions of dollars will be lost from the tens of thousands of events not taking place around the world.
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How the 'Thrift Haul' Boosted Secondhand Ecommerce Platforms

Lon Harris
Lon Harris is a contributor to dot.LA. His work has also appeared on ScreenJunkies, RottenTomatoes and Inside Streaming.
How the 'Thrift Haul' Boosted Secondhand Ecommerce Platforms
Evan Xie

If you can believe it, it’s been more than a decade since rapper Macklemore extolled the virtues of thrift shopping in a viral music video. But while scouring the ranks of vintage clothing stores looking for the ultimate come-up may have waned in popularity since 2012, the online version of this activity is apparently thriving.

According to a new trend story from CNBC, interest in “reselling” platforms like Etsy-owned Depop and Poshmark has exploded in the years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. In an article that spends a frankly surprising amount of time focused on sellers receiving death threats before concluding that they’re “not the norm,” the network cites the usual belt-tightening ecommerce suspects – housebound individuals doing more of their shopping online coupled with inflation woes and recession fears – as the causes behind the uptick.

As for data, there’s a survey from Depop themselves, finding that 53% of respondents in the UK are more inclined to shop secondhand as living costs continue to rise. Additional research from Advance Market Analytics confirms the trend, citing not just increased demand for cheap clothes but the pressing need for a sustainable alternative to recycling clothing materials at its core.

The major popularity of “thrift haul” videos across social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok has also boosted the visibility of vintage clothes shopping and hunting for buried treasures. Teenage TikToker Jacklyn Wells scores millions of views on her thrift haul videos, only to get routinely mass-accused of greed for ratching up the Depop resell prices for her coolest finds and discoveries. Nonetheless, viral clips like Wells’ have helped to embed secondhand shopping apps more generally within online fashion culture. Fashion and beauty magazine Hunger now features a regular list of the hottest items on the re-sale market, with a focus on how to use them to recreate hot runway looks.

As with a lot of consumer and technology trends, the sudden surge of interest in second-hand clothing retailers was only partly organic. According to The Drum, ecommerce apps Vinted, eBay, and Depop have collectively spent around $120 million on advertising throughout the last few years, promoting the recent vintage shopping boom and helping to normalize second-hand shopping. This includes conventional advertising, of course, but also deals with online influencers to post content like “thrift haul” videos, along with shoutouts for where to track down the best finds.

Reselling platforms have naturally responded to the increase in visibility with new features (as well as a predictable hike in transaction fees). Poshmark recently introduced livestreamed “Posh Shows” during which sellers can host auctions or provide deeper insight into their inventory. Depop, meanwhile, has introduced a “Make Offer” option to fully integrate the bartering and negotiation process into the app, rather than forcing buyers and sellers to text or Direct Message one another elsewhere. (The platform formerly had a comments section on product pages, but shut this option down after finding that it led to arguments, and wasn’t particularly helpful in making purchase decisions.)

Now that it’s clear there’s money to be made in online thrift stores, larger and more established brands and retailers are also pushing their way into the space. H&M and Target have both partnered with online thrift store ThredUp on featured collections of previously-worn clothing. A new “curated” resale collection from Tommy Hilfiger – featuring minorly damaged items that were returned to its retail stores – was developed and promoted through a partnership with Depop, which has also teamed with Kellogg’s on a line of Pop-Tarts-inspired wear. J.Crew is even bringing back its classic ‘80s Rollneck Sweater in a nod to the renewed interest in all things vintage.

Still, with any surge of popularity and visibility, there must also come an accompanying backlash. In a sharp editorial this week for Arizona University’s Daily Wildcat, thrift shopping enthusiast Luke Lawson makes the case that sites like Depop are “gentrifying fashion,” stripping communities of local thrift stores that provide a valuable public service, particularly for members of low-income communities. As well, UK tabloids are routinely filled with secondhand shopping horror stories these days, another evidence point as to their increased visibility among British consumers specifically, not to mention the general dangers of buying personal items from strangers you met over the internet.

How to Startup: Mission Acquisition

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

How to Startup: Mission Acquisition

Numbers don’t lie, but often they don’t tell the whole story. If you look at the facts and figures alone, launching a startup seems like a daunting enterprise. It seems like a miracle anyone makes it out the other side.

  • 90% of startups around the world fail.
  • On average, it takes startups 2-3 years to turn a profit. (Venture funded startups take far longer.)
  • Post-seed round, fewer than 10% of startups go on to successfully raise a Series A investment.
  • Less than 1% of startups go public.
  • A startup only has a .00006% chance of becoming a unicorn.

Ouch.

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From The Vault: VC Legend Bill Gurley On Startups, Venture Capital and Scaling

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

Bill Gurley in a blue suit
Bill Gurley

This interview was originally published on December of 2020, and was recorded at the inaugural dot.LA Summit held October 27th & 28th.

One of my longtime favorite episodes of Office Hours was a few years ago when famed venture capitalist Bill Gurley and I talked about marketplace-based companies, how work-from-home will continue to accelerate business opportunities and his thoughts on big tech and antitrust.

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