MANAGING EVENTS IN PANDEMIC TIMES

IAPCO Member: C-IN, Czech Republic

With a healthy dose of anxiety, the world sits mostly in lockdown, observing the latest developments and threats associated with COVID-19. We all face a very serious and unprecedented challenge which in business terms has affected almost all industries, including the events industry. As a member of the meetings industry, we face an increasingly unpredictable future as we fight through complicated scenarios of what it means to organise events in such a global epidemic. We must juggle crisis-mode decisions whilst considering the ramifications of postponing or cancelling events, changing legal conditions and restrictions, re-planning congresses at the last minute, meeting new health requirements, changing staffing needs, managing financial outcomes... the list goes on. As regulations continue to fluctuate and we float in and out of different force majeure or contract situations, we must remain extremely vigilant in order to act in the best interests of the many parties involved. There is a real irony in how the events industry manages to continue to organise mass gatherings around the world whilst many individuals within it are working alone from home, separated from colleagues and office normality. The situation could easily be compared to the worst nightmare of any event management company, but determination keeps us moving forward.

One example of these challenges was the 59th Annual Conference of the Particle Therapy Co-operative Group (PTCOG 59), one of our larger conferences. The event was planned to be held in Taiwan in May 2020 for over 1200 people. For an international conference in the current pandemic situation, a major part of the challenge was to consider not only the situation in the conference destination but also the situations in the different regions around the world from which key participants would travel. The pandemic is not being managed on a global basis and as individual nations implemented different laws and restrictions, each had their own effect on the likely success of the conference. The decision lay between running the event as planned whilst managing participant health and safety, and postponing the event to increase the likelihood of being able to hold a successful meeting. In order to prevent event cancellation in 2020, it was postponed to a later date in September.

Changing the date, however, of such a large-scale event is much easier said than done. There are many factors to consider in order to successfully move an event back by four months whilst holding on to the original plans, programme and objectives. When dates became available and all required venues, suppliers, speakers, social events, hotels and all contracted conditions magically aligned, we found out that two key sponsors simply could not attend. We were forced to go back to the drawing board and repeat the process in full all over again. With the dedication of many, and through negotiations with other events, PTCOG 59 was successfully postponed to September 2020 in its original destination and venues.

Now the dust is settling on a manic couple of months seeing Q2 and Q3 events postponed or cancelled, a new set of challenges have to be faced due to increased Q4 demand. If, indeed, the situation improves and approximately 80% of the year’s events are forced into one season, this will require a new level of planning and logistics. We must ensure the same level of quality is realised at each event whilst reassigning our labour force across many overlapping events in multiple countries. There will also be new competition for organisers as events within associated sectors will land in the same season and compete for the time of the delegates and industry sponsors vital to their success.

This is only one of so many examples within our industry, yet C-IN firmly believes that the epidemic will soon run its course and the events industry will survive to see brighter days. Indeed, we are part of an industry that is well placed to revitalise economies as we are so multidisciplinary by nature. Whilst we are sure the surprises are not yet over and challenges still remain, with every hardship or unprecedented situation there are valuable lessons to be learnt and new opportunities that will arise. We must all continuously monitor developments whilst adding flexible strings to our bow, being ever ready to succeed whether using plan B, C, D or even E.