On 21 March 2025, a fire at an electricity substation closed London Heathrow until the evening. The outage disrupted more than 270,000 journeys (National Energy System Operator review, 2025). Now picture a conference that opened elsewhere in Europe that morning. The rooms are set and the coffee is poured, while a third of the delegates sit in departure halls.
Is that force majeure? Under most venue and hotel contracts, no. The venue can perform, so the organiser’s payment obligations stay in place. That gap between what feels like force majeure and what a contract treats as force majeure is the subject of this guide.
The person who feels the gap first is your finance director. She countersigns the venue contract and asks one question: if this goes wrong, what do we still owe? Our argument is that the answer is not in the list of events. It is in the paragraph about consequences. A force majeure clause protects you only if it settles the threshold, the money and the new date, and reads the same in every contract around the event.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Contract law differs by country and, in the United States, by state, so have your contracts reviewed by a lawyer in the governing jurisdiction.
What force majeure means, and why the governing law matters
The finance director’s question has no single answer, because force majeure is not one rule. It is a contract term for events beyond the parties’ control. What applies when the contract is silent depends on the law that governs it.
| Governing law | What applies without a clause | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| England and Wales | No statute on force majeure. The Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943 applies only where a contract has become impossible to perform or is otherwise frustrated. Money paid beforehand is then recoverable, but a court may let the other side keep an amount for expenses | Frustration is the test, and courts apply it narrowly. Part of the refund is at the court’s discretion |
| New York | The clause is read closely. The state’s highest court held in 1987 that performance is ordinarily excused only if the clause specifically includes the event that prevents it (Kel Kim Corp. v. Central Markets) | The list of events matters |
| Germany | Statutory rules on impossibility (sections 275 and 326 of the Civil Code, BGB) and on adjusting a contract when its basis changes fundamentally (section 313) | Courts tend to adjust the contract, for example by moving the date, before they end it |
Two recent decisions show how literally courts take the contract. In May 2024, the UK Supreme Court decided a shipping case in which one party invoked force majeure after US sanctions made payment in dollars difficult. The other side offered to pay in euros. The court held unanimously that a duty to use reasonable endeavours does not require a party to accept performance different from the contract, unless clear words provide for it (RTI Ltd v MUR Shipping BV, 2024, UKSC 18). By the same logic, a venue need not accept your offer to move online, and you need not accept a different hall, unless the contract says so.
In Germany, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) ruled in March 2022 on a wedding party of about 70 guests that a pandemic order had banned. The couple had paid 2,600 euros in rent and wanted it back. The court refused, because the rooms could still be handed over, and treated the landlord’s offer of a later date as the appropriate adjustment (case XII ZR 36/21). Even a government ban did not produce a refund, only a new date.
Courts enforce the contract you signed. They rarely write a better one.
We accessed the statutes, court summaries and model clauses cited in this article on 11 November 2026.
Two situations most clauses miss
If courts read contracts this closely, the wording has to match what actually goes wrong at events. A venue that burns down is the textbook case and the rare one. Two situations are far more common, and many standard clauses are silent on both.
The first is an event that is still possible but has lost its purpose. Think of an order that limits gatherings to half the room’s capacity. Nothing is impossible, yet the conference you sold no longer exists.
The second is partial attendance. During the volcanic ash cloud of April 2010, about 104,000 flights were cancelled in eight days. Some 10 million passengers could not board, according to the European air traffic body EUROCONTROL (report of 28 June 2010). The ash closed airports, not conference centres. The remedy is often called partial force majeure: the clause should excuse performance “in whole or in part”. Room and catering minimums then fall when a share of the audience cannot arrive.
Events rarely fail completely. Most contracts assume they do.
Five parts of a clause that holds
Closing these gaps does not take a longer list of disasters. It takes a clause that answers five questions. A useful reference is the model clause of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), written for international trade contracts and updated in 2020.
The ICC Force Majeure Clause 2020 in three numbers
For an event, two of the five matter more than in a trade contract: the money and the new date.
- Events: Agree a list and a catch-all phrase for comparable events. Where courts read clauses as closely as in New York, name what you fear. Add anything already foreseeable when you sign, such as an ongoing labour dispute.
- Threshold: Many clauses apply only when performance is illegal or impossible. Event contracts sometimes add wording such as “inadvisable” or “commercially impractical”. Make it measurable, for example a named share of registered attendees who demonstrably cannot travel, and state the purpose of the event in the contract.
- Money: Say which deposits come back, by when, and which documented costs the supplier may keep. If the event shrinks instead of ending, minimums for rooms and catering should fall in the same proportion.
- Rebooking: Agree a right to move the event, for example within twelve months on the same terms, with all payments credited. Say what happens if no date can be found.
- Procedure: The ICC clause requires notice without delay and reasonable measures to limit the effects. Add a decision date, so both sides know when the event is confirmed or called off.
Venue, hotel, speaker: one event, three contracts
The five parts apply to every contract, but each supplier carries a different risk. The same strike touches the venue, the hotel and the speaker in three different ways.
Venue
In the venue contract, the threshold does the work. Write the purpose of the event and the expected attendance into the contract, so that a failed purpose can be measured later. Cover capacity limits ordered by an authority, and ask what the venue offers if power or connectivity fail. Raise these points before you shortlist. Our guide to the event RFP, the request for proposal you send to venues, lists force majeure among the contract terms that change the final bill.
Hotel and room block
In a hotel contract, two risks are tied together: the meeting space and the bedrooms. Check that the clause covers both, and that the attrition threshold of your room block falls with a partial force majeure event. Otherwise you pay for empty rooms caused by the same disruption that emptied your plenary. How attrition is measured and negotiated is explained in our guide to hotel attrition and room blocks.
For the finance director, this is usually the largest single figure in the file. She should know it before she signs.
Speakers
Speaker contracts need the clause in both directions. The most common emergency here is a keynote speaker with a fever on the morning of the session. For the speaker, settle what counts as an excused absence, who finds a substitute and whether remote delivery is acceptable. For yourself, settle what you owe if force majeure forces you to cancel the event or move it online. Bureaus often work with non-refundable deposits, so ask whether they stay non-refundable in that case. The full clause list is in our speaker agreement checklist, and bureau terms are covered in our guide to speaker bureaus.
Attendees, exhibitors and sponsors
The fourth contract is your own. Your terms for attendees, exhibitors and sponsors say what you refund if the event is cancelled or moved. Those promises have to match what you get back from venue and hotel. If you promise attendees a full refund and receive only a new date yourself, the difference is yours.
The weakest contract sets the level of your protection.
What the clause cannot do: insurance and budget
Even a well-matched set of contracts does not replace lost income. Brian Lynch of the insurance broker Ames & Gough makes the distinction in an article for the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) from May 2026. A force majeure clause is a tool for keeping losses small, and event cancellation insurance is the tool for recovering them. He also names the limits. Many policies exclude communicable disease, and perils already known when you buy are typically not covered. Buy early, ideally when the first venue deposits are paid.
Your finance director therefore needs three numbers before signing. The first is what remains payable in the worst case under the contracts. The second is how much of that an insurer would cover, and the third is the risk line in the budget. Our B2B event budget template shows where such a line belongs.
The clause limits what you owe. It does not replace what you lose.
When it happens: the first 48 hours
Once the event occurs, the procedure part of the clause decides how strong your position is. Late notice and a failure to limit the damage both weaken it. The sequence below is a working plan for the first two days.
The first 48 hours after a force majeure event
- At once Document the situation Save official orders, strike notices and carrier announcements with date and time.
- Same day Notify your suppliers Tell venue, hotel and suppliers in writing and refer to the clause by number.
- Same day Limit the damage Release rooms and reduce catering numbers as far as the contracts allow.
- Day 1 Inform attendees and speakers Say what is certain, what is open and when the next update will follow.
- Day 1 to 2 Agree the way forward Propose new dates or termination and confirm every agreement in writing.
Steps two and four need numbers you can prove: how many people are registered, where they travel from and who has already cancelled. Without them, a threshold such as “one third of attendees cannot travel” is an assertion, not evidence.
Solution: When registration, programme and meetings sit in one place, those numbers are at hand. In Converve’s registration, custom fields can capture details such as arrival day and accommodation needs. Sessions and booked one-to-one meetings appear in each attendee’s personal agenda, and meetings can run in person or by video. If part of the programme has to move online, booked meetings can take place by video. What that takes in practice is covered in our guide to hybrid event planning.
Checklist before you sign
With that sequence in mind, it becomes clear what must be settled before signature. Go through these points with every supplier, and hand the list to your lawyer as a brief.
- Does the contract contain a force majeure clause, and does it protect both sides?
- Which events does it name, and is there a catch-all for comparable events?
- Does it apply only when performance is impossible, or also when the purpose of the event fails?
- Is a partial event covered, and do minimums fall in proportion?
- Which deposits come back, by when, and which costs may the supplier deduct?
- Is there a right to rebook, and by when must the new date take place?
- How and by when must you give notice, and what is the decision date?
- Do the rules in the venue, hotel and speaker contracts match your own terms for attendees?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a force majeure clause in an event contract?
It is a contract term that says what happens when an event beyond the parties’ control prevents performance. The ICC model clause of 2020 requires that the impediment was beyond reasonable control, not reasonably foreseeable at signing and not reasonably avoidable. For events, the clause should also settle refunds, partial performance and rebooking.
Is a strike or a flight cancellation force majeure?
Only if the clause says so. For general labour disturbances such as strikes and for prolonged transport breakdown, the ICC model clause presumes that the event was beyond control and unforeseeable. The affected party still has to show that the effects could not be avoided. A rail strike does not close your venue, though. Unless the clause also covers a failed purpose or partial attendance, venue and hotel charges usually remain payable.
Do I get my deposit back if the event is cancelled because of force majeure?
That depends on the clause and the governing law. Without a clause, English law falls back on frustration. Under the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943, money paid beforehand is recoverable, but a court may let the supplier keep an amount for expenses. In 2022, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice held that a couple still owed the full rent for a wedding party banned in 2020; their only remedy was the date change the venue had offered (BGH, XII ZR 36/21). A clear refund rule in the contract removes that uncertainty.
Does event cancellation insurance replace a force majeure clause?
No, the two do different jobs. The clause reduces what you owe suppliers, and insurance can recover lost income and sunk costs. Broker Brian Lynch notes that many policies exclude communicable disease and known perils, so the cover has to be bought early and checked against the clause (PCMA, May 2026).
Conclusion: negotiate the consequences, not the list
Force majeure is not a magic word that ends a contract. Without a clause, the governing law decides, and courts hold parties to what they signed. A standard clause often covers the rare total loss and leaves you exposed in the common partial one. What your clause is worth is decided by the paragraph on consequences: the threshold at which it applies, what happens to the money and whether you may move the date.
Negotiate those points the same way in every contract, from venue and hotel to speakers and your own terms. Then your finance director can answer her question before she signs, with a number instead of a hope.
If you want registrations, programme and meetings in one place, so you know quickly who is affected when plans change, get in touch with Converve.