The European Tolerance Talks 2020 will take place online this year, the entire program will be carried out as planned from May 27th to 29th – but virtually. “The Board of the Tolerance Talks made this decision on Wednesday after Easter at a video session,” said the Carinthian superintendent and chairman of the organizer Denk.Raum.Fresach, Manfred Sauer. “The Tolerance Talks 2020 will be a mix of video conferences with accompanying chats, film recordings from Fresach and live entry points on site,” reveals Sauer, who speaks of a daring experiment. “With the first online talks, Fresach is breaking new ground, which, however, fits to the topic of this year’s event exactly: ‘Exodus – Leaving the familiar’. We are all very excited to see whether the interested audience will follow us into the virtual room.” # ETG20 – Talk on the screen The European Tolerance Talks consist of a youth forum and a tourism forum in Villach (May 27th), a tolerance forum (May 28th) and an economic forum (May 29th) in the mountain village of Fresach as well as a final poetry slam Friday evening before Pentecost. Timing and program items are to be retained, the organizers now want to attract moderators and speakers to participate online. Preparations are underway. Under the hashtag #ETG20, the conversations should be able to be followed on the conference website, but also streamed via the large social media networks of Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. The audience also has the opportunity to ask questions in the chat rooms, which are then brought into the live discussion. “In any case, the opening will take place on site, albeit unfortunately without an audience, coffee and Carinthian snacks,” says Sauer. Fresach as a symbol for a new start Superintendent Sauer assures Fresach will set another milestone with the 2020 tolerance talks. “When the world is turned upside down and nothing is the way it was, the exodus from everyday life and work becomes normal, the excerpt from the familiar becomes reality. What we could not have foreseen at the time of the conference planning has now occurred. We are therefore already discussing the consequences and the restart.” (ws)
