Both Indiana and National FFA Conventions will be In-Person in Capital City

2020-2021 Indiana FFA State Officer Team

With the announcement of the National FFA convention returning to in-person later this year, that makes two FFA conventions in-person and based in Indianapolis in 2021. The Indiana State FFA Convention in June is shifting to the Indiana State Fairgrounds and will welcome the blue jackets to be on the ground there.

Indiana FFA director Sam Miller said the Covid factor forced the move.

“Traditionally we are at Purdue University and that just wasn’t able to work out due to the Covid restrictions, but we were very set on having an in-person state convention opportunity for our students,” she told HAT. “They just deserve to be able to have some type of experience to get back to a normal life and not be in front of a computer yet again for another event. So, that meant a lot of creativity on our team’s part and brainstorming, ok where can we go in the state of Indiana that makes logistic sense for our schools, that makes money sense for our organization to put on an event.”

The new venue can host enough students that it makes sense to stage the convention. Home base will be the Expo Hall June 15-17, 2021. Purdue University had been home to the convention for 91 years prior to going all virtual last year.

Miller says the biggest change will be limited seating, “being in a different venue and having to still do some social distancing pieces. So, we do have just 1,200 people who will be able to join us during each individual session.”

But Indiana FFA is doing all it can to replicate much of past state conventions.

“The session content, how we’re going to handle each session, the atmosphere you’ll feel during the session, the energy that the state officers will bring, the sponsors remarks, the recognizing of the achievements of our members, that will all be the same,” Miller said. “We will still have the convention spread out over a Tuesday through a Thursday. It’s still six sessions. The content of each session is the same, and we’re expecting approximately the same length of each session.”

Each session will again be streamed this year. Hear the full conversation with Sam Miller here:

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