EntreFest 2016 canceled

This year's EntreFest has been canceled, but organizers say the multiday conference geared toward entrepreneurs could be back in 2017.

'EntreFest 2016 has run into many unexpected changes and production delays over the past several months,” reads a statement on the event's website. 'As a result, the difficult decision has been made to postpone the event this May.”

More than 900 people registered for the 2015 event, which took place in Iowa City and featured about 115 speakers and 90 workshops over three days.

The event has been around for about eight years. The 2015 event also gained large sponsors - the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and University of Northern Iowa.

'Over the next year, the regent universities, led by UNI who founded and owns the program, will be working to restructure the event for long-term success,” the statement said.

Paul Kinghorn, the director of UNI's Center for Business Growth & Innovation, told the Des Moines Register the universities are looking for members of Iowa's entrepreneur community to take responsibility for EntreFEST. What that looks like or who takes it over is still undetermined.

'We're looking to transition it to people who already have good connections, who already have an interest in what's going on here,” he said.

Kinghorn said EntreFEST's size has grown to a point that can strain resources and time available from the universities. The larger EntreFEST became, so did the time, resources, staffing and compensation necessary to put it on.

'There does come a point where continued growth may or may not be the smartest thing,” Kinghorn said. 'We're more interested in seeing something that has some survivability and sustainability than ... having something that can grow to implode” on itself.