I’ve been producing events for the last twenty years. I’ve also helped countless other event planners host thousands of events around the world. Essentially, I’ve been bringing large groups of human beings together for my entire professional career. Last year, in the blink of an eye, that all stopped for us event planners. We all either lost our jobs or had to pivot and move our events online. Either way, it was a major shock to our professional and personal lives and I’m concerned it might not be as easy for us to “get back to normal” as quickly as we all would hope.
Throughout the pandemic, the consensus in the event industry has been that when there is a vaccine is when we all expect to get back to normal. Almost like it would be our on/off switch. Logically it makes sense. I’ve even told myself that as well. But now that the vaccine is here, if I’m being completely honest, I’m still scared and I’m not ready to flip the switch just yet. And I know lots of other event planners feel the same way but we are all afraid, or maybe too prideful, to admit it. I’m scared for my own well-being. I’m scared for my attendees and my teammates. I’m scared that somehow I could be responsible for contributing to continuing this awful pandemic. I’m scared that for the first time in 20 years I really don’t know what I’m doing and there seems to be a lot at risk.
About 12 years ago someone dropped dead at one of my events. 😳 Thankfully, my event staff reacted quickly enough and the attendee suffering from a heart attack actually survived. Even still, that moment changed me forever as an event producer. It made me fully appreciate that events are collections of human beings coming together. When that happens, the potential inherent risk goes up. It is statistical probability in play. More people = more chance something bad can happen. On top of that, events add more risk with things like crowds, alcohol, weather, large productions, equipment, etc.
The heavy reality that I came to realize is that as an event producer, your attendees’ lives are in your hands.
Even though this all sounds incredibly dark and challenging, I’ve spent my career committed to this work because I love it. I love executing incredible experiences for people and I’m not ready to give up. So….. I’m trying to unpack this all and find a way to navigate myself (and hopefully others) out of this new fear. I wanted to share a few concepts that I’ve been thinking about in the hope they can help us get through this.
1. Let’s ease into it
I don’t even feel comfortable walking on the same side of the street as other people right now and I don’t think I’m alone in this thinking. It’s going to take most of us some time re-acclimate to being in groups with other humans. We have to ease in to it and start small. Really small!
A journalist recently asked me something I predict in 2021 for the events industry. My answer was that I unfortunately think that some larger scale event will rush to happen and it will be unsafe and ultimately be a huge setback for our industry’s recovery.
Let’s prove me wrong.
Let’s produce events with 10–20 people. Or host events that are programmed with lots of sessions that breakdown the full crowd in to groups of 10–20 people.
Let’s use as many outdoor venues as we can.
Let’s try not to produce large scale music productions with crowds pressed up against a stage.
Let’s not pack people into bars and restaurants.
Think — picnic with friends. Let’s do a few of those and slowly grow to the larger scale productions we love. Our collective patience will be imperative.
2. We need to go above and beyond
To create an event environment that feels safe enough to attract attendees (and even staff) we are going to have to go way above and beyond. Just having a sign that says “please wear your mask” and offer some hand sanitizer isn’t going to cut it. EVERY aspect of the event should be thoughtfully designed with the safety and well being of attendees in mind. And, it needs to be communicated in an authentic way. This is where I think we’ll see the most creativity come out of our industry.
I’ve already been thinking about: contactless check-in, mobile COVID testing/vaccination passports, liability waivers, using RFID to help manage contact tracing, contactless lead retrieval, programmatic networking, staff and vendor protocol management, etc. I’ve seen venues start to rollout modified F&B delivery plans and augment their facilities for smaller audience sizes. I also know there’s a lot happening surrounding liability insurance for venues and planners. How that plays out will certainly shape our events going forward.
A challenge I’m setting for my team is to have an attendee give us feedback that our event was “too safe”. That’s how we’ll get past this fear.
3. Let’s use knowledge to combat fear
One thing I love about the events industry is that we like to share (or some may call it showoff) our work. This quickly creates trends and best practices across the industry. This will come in handy right now as we all struggle to iterate through what’s working and what’s not. I’ll be looking to Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other social media platforms to pick up ideas from other event producers. I look forward to speaking on panels with other leaders in our industry and I’ll keep writing and reading as much as I can. I’ve even signed up for a certification course on how to become a “Pandemic Compliance Advisor”. Let’s all be sponges for new ideas right now. Gaining knowledge is an incredibly powerful tactic to suppress fear.
Stay safe and best of luck with your events in 2021. I’ll share more as soon as I know more! We’ve got this!