What just happened?

For many corporate event organisers, 2020 has been a year of unprecedented upheaval.

Covid-19 has been a complete reset – a reappraisal of what their job means. “We used to run 75 conferences globally and two trade shows a year, we’d done 12 until March - and then nothing since,” says Rita Andrew, head of exhibitions at AMI Plastics.

“We had to cancel 29, we changed 14 to virtual and renegotiated 40 contracts into next year. It’s been a fun year!”, she adds, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

Chloe Forrester, deputy head of operations at Euromoney Conferences, has had a similar experience.

“We moved all our events onto digital platforms”, she says. “We don’t have any live events scheduled. We won’t be doing any live events until Q3 2021 at the earliest.

“It’s completely changed what I do day to day. It’s like having a new job.”

For Mark Dodds, marketing manager at Roythornes Solicitors, the main challenge has been juggling the desire to run live events with the practicalities of managing the current situation.

“In a business such as ours it really is all about our people, and live events were a great opportunity to start to build lasting and profitable relationships,” he says. “Being unable to host our own live events has undoubtedly changed the way we develop the business.

“In addition we are faced with the decision whether or not to book for events in the second quarter of 2021. There are a number who say they are ploughing ahead but we are not convinced, and some of the cancellation policies are not very user friendly, which is a shame, and stops us from signing on the dotted line.”

Technology

With live out of the question until the middle of next year for most corporates, organisers have had to embrace technology like never before.

“Events managers have never been interested in technology”, says Christopher McCarthy, senior event manager at Rathbones. “In the last six months we’ve needed to become experts on various different tech, that’s been the biggest challenge.

"We’ve been working out what platform is best for what type of event – there doesn’t seem to be one event platform that does everything we need."

Anna Fox, head of events at Liberty Global, is unequivocal about what the biggest challenge of Covid-19 has been.

“Technology”, she says. “Give me a venue and caterers any day. If I’m hosting something and my Wi-Fi goes down, it’s out of my hands. That’s where it’s changed. I’d rather have technicians on site – they’re experts!”

“We’re learning how platforms work,” adds Forrester. “We use quite a few different platforms. We wouldn’t use just one venue, it’s the same thing. Our events are quite varied in terms of what we want out of them. Multiple platforms can fulfil different roles.”

Challenge

And while events have been affected, it’s important not to forget that events teams are being affected too.

“I'm really aware that some of the junior members of the team are really missing out on the mentoring”, says Amanda Whitlock, director, global strategic events and experiences at EY.

We have interns who work in our team, we get them every six months as part of the Bath University intervention, and for them to miss out on what the experience is, being in an office environment, and even just doing the brainstorming sessions, this is something I'm really conscious of.”

Mark Dodds says: “We have held some webinars but to be honest it’s such a crowded market they have to be very specialised to get a decent audience and add value to the attendees.

“Being lawyers we are lucky in that we can stage very focused and technical webinars that give us an opportunity to demonstrate our expertise and knowledge. An example is one we recently ran about succession planning for sheep farmers. Not a mass market event, but very well attended with loads of engagement and positive feedback.”

Quality

Christopher McCarthy has been running three main types of events: ‘In conversation with…’ events, with live talking heads; presentation-heavy trustee training courses; and replicating conferences online.

“The latter is good for getting content out, but nobody has been able to prove to me that networking can work as well online as it does in real life,” he says.

“People keep throwing numbers around, saying ‘We had 300 people registered online’ or whatever, but I’m a great believer in quality over quantity. I’d much rather have the right 50 people rather than 200 people online, its harder to see how engaged people are especially when cameras and microphones can be turned off. It is much harder to measure though."

It’s the lack of control in the virtual world that has proved frustrating for Amanda Whitlock.

“If you're filming somebody and their Wi-Fi drops, there's nothing you can do,” she says. “You literally have to sit on your hands and just count to 10 and just decide what decision you're going to make and how you're going to proceed and that is what I think all of us are finding quite challenging.

“You a have to have a backup but then you have to have a backup for the backup and so on. We've been using studios or planning to send film crews to people's houses and the Covid rules suddenly change in a country, and a full crew can't go to that person's house anymore. So you have to send a film kit and you have to have them set it all up and it's just making sure you really have all of the backup plans in place and that they’re perfect.”

Production values

With online events established as the only game in town, at least in the short term, attention is now turning to production values; how do we make them look good?

“Everyone’s now getting Zoom fatigue, it’s so boring,” says Richard Waddington, chair of the Event Marketing Association, the community for in-house event organisers. “We need to be moving more towards a television production style. If we’re going to do corporate communications, that’s the way.”

In October the EMA held an event at the Royal Lancaster, where the hotel has just set up its own production studio.

“With hybrid you can have 30-40 people in the room and then also have the studio broadcasting”, says Waddington. “Live is not going to return quickly, companies aren’t going to go back until it’s safe. Corporates are seeing the benefits of not doing live and the benefits of not travelling.

“They want to get back to live events, because they’re missing human engagement and communication.

Evolution

“However, there’s going to be a massive change in the future. Live will not return to the way it was. Some events won’t go live again, they’ll be virtual. Online will get better and better.

“It’s an evolution, not a revolution. It’s a great opportunity. There are companies that will grow and thrive. Everyone wants the world to go back to the way it was, but it’s just not going to.”

Rita Andrews is a little more optimistic.

“There’s an appetite to meet”, she says. “There are lots of travel bans in companies though, people are not able to travel a lot. We’ve kept delegates engaged using newsletters and LinkedIn groups.

“We’re hoping that the second quarter onwards will be a little more normal.”

For Mark Dodds, the next 12 months will see a continued focus on communications.

“We’d love to get out and about again meeting our clients and prospects, but we’re not overconfident that will happen soon, and if events do kick off again, that there will be the same appetite for getting out and about”, he says. “We are down to attend two massive agri-business events in May and June 2021 – both key events of the year for that sector - let’s hope for some sunshine!”

Finding a positive in the gloom, McCarthy says that Rathbones has been able to engage with every single one of its 15 regional offices, of all different customer types, where it hasn’t been able to invite some to live events due to the cost and gifts and benefits rules, for the first time ever.

“I can’t wait to get back to live events”, he says. “Going forward it’s going to be a mix of live and online. Our main concern is the safety of staff and customers, we follow the government guidelines to the dot and won’t do anything to risk clients and staff safety.

Confidence

“I can’t see anything changing before summer 2021, we need a long lead time and we also need that confidence to come back. I can’t see hotels, restaurants and venues in the capital changing much until people have that confidence to get on public transport and go across London.”

Chloe Forrester added that while the number of events has reduced, she was still optimistic long term.

“I think events will come back as soon as we can have them again,” she says.

Fox is eager to see how the industry works with technology.

“Do you really need a speaker onstage?” she asks. “If you’ve got the right technology, a massive screen, you can beam them in for £10k rather than paying £30k for them to be there in person. That’s where solutions will change – and we can reinvest.”

And she’s also confident that corporates have a role to play in ushering in the return to live events.

“All of my team have done Covid-secure accreditation,” she says. “It could be a deal breaker for some venues. Health and safety is going to come first, even before looking at content.

“The onus is on us as in-house event organisers to say we’re safe enough to go back,” she adds. “We’ve got to let the stakeholders know and win confidence back.”

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